NEDU also provides technical recommendations to the Naval Sea Systems Command to support operational requirements of the US armed forces.

On these deep dives, the divers experienced the debilitating effects of nitrogen narcosis leading them to try the addition of helium to their breathing mix.

[6] Momsen and McCann received a Letter of Commendation from President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt for the Squalus effort.

[6] The first medical staff were introduced to the facility in the mid-1930s when Charles W Shilling, Albert R Behnke, and OE Van der Aue began work.

[12][13] From 1957 to 1962 was the beginnings of saturation diving under the leadership of Captain George F. Bond of the Naval Submarine Medical Research Laboratory and the Genesis Project.

[16] Robert D. Workman published a novel method to calculate decompression schedules in 1965 that involved estimating the limiting values of excess tissue supersaturation.

[17] Work continued in deep saturation dives, equipment testing as well as thermal protection and physiology research throughout the 1960s and early 1970s.

[1] NEDU began a project to modernize Stillson's MK V surface supplied diving system which had been in service since 1916 in the early 1970s, and developed, tested, and certified the replacement Mark 12 Surface Supplied Diving System which was taken into service in 1985, and eventually its replacement the Mark 21/ Superlight 17 in the 1970s and 1980s,[1][19][20] adopted in 1993.

These dives were used, amongst other things, to evaluate decompression and recompression procedures, equipment, carbon dioxide absorbents, as well as active and passive thermal protection.

[1][29] In 2002, certification of the Mark 16 Mod 1 rebreather was completed following improvement of systems including, extension of the working limit to 300 feet (91 m), new decompression tables for both nitrogen-oxygen and helium-oxygen diving including new repetitive diving capabilities for helium-oxygen, test of an Emergency Breathing System with communications, the addition of an integrated buoyancy compensation device, and an improved full face mask.

Equipped with the latest data acquisition capability, the OSF can accommodate a wide range of complex experiments including diver biomedical studies and testing of humans as well as small submersible vehicles and other machines in the wet chamber.

The test pool has a communications suite, full video capability, real-time computerized data acquisition and analysis, and pressure and gas monitoring.

[38] The depth is sufficient to allow divers to maintain an oxygen partial pressure of 1.3 bar on their breathing apparatus while immersed and riding a bicycle ergometer.

[38] The Experimental Diving Facility (EDF) simulates unmanned pressure conditions to 1,640 feet (500 m) sea water and temperatures can be set from 28 to 110 °F (−2 to 43 °C).

As a complement to the Ocean Simulation Facility, the EDF is used to conduct unmanned testing and evaluation of diving and hyperbaric chamber systems and components.

All diving practices and procedures are tested to determine their safety, conformance to established standards, and operational suitability and limits.