The World first 'Iron Man'-like diving suit

As a teen, Nuytten showed rare talent when he started designing his first diving gear. By 1985 he had designed the Newtsuit, a sea diving suit so groundbreaking that it was adopted by NASA and the U.S. military. Nuytten's company also built a submarine escape system for the U.S. Navy.

Then Nuytten created the Exosuit.

"It's kind of like 'Iron Man' come to life," Nuytten told CNN recently from his company's research facility in Vancouver, British Columbia. The suit has thrusters like the superhero character. But instead of soaring through the air, sea divers use these thrusters to "fly" through the water. The thrusters are propelled by water jets, each packing 1.6 horsepower.

Think about what it must be like to work in a 530-pound aluminum-alloy suit 1,000 feet under water.

It's very cold and basically dark.

At that depth, it's too far for any significant sunlight to penetrate.

The pressure of 500 pounds per square inch is pressing all around your body. But the exterior of a very strong diving suit protects your body from being crushed. LED lights built into the Exosuit help you see what you're working on. 

These kinds of special suits -- which maintain internal pressure in deep water equal to the pressure on the surface -- are called atmospheric diving suits, or ADS. They're aimed at undersea oil rig workers, salvage experts or scientists exploring the ocean floor.

Over the past century, atmospheric diving suits have been developed and improved in hopes of preventing the dangerous effects of decompression sickness, aka the bends.

Divers get the bends from moving too fast from a high-pressure environment to a normal pressure environment. The rapid change can release nitrogen gas bubbles into the bloodstream, damaging blood vessels, blocking blood flow and triggering joint pain.

Nuytten, now in his mid-70s, has had his Hollywood moments. He served as underwater technical director on the 1989 James Cameron film "The Abyss," for which he built two submarines and designed diving helmets. He also worked on Cameron's Academy Award-winning "Titanic."