Permanent Undersea Homes Soon; Temporary Ones Now

MMBK writes "Dennis Chamberland is one of the world's preeminent aquanauts. He's worked with NASA to develop living habitats and underwater plant growth labs, among other cool things. His next goal is establishing the world's first permanent underwater colony. This video gets to the heart of his project, literally and figuratively, as most is shot in his underwater habitat, Atlantica, off the coast of Key Largo, FL. The coolest part might be the moon pool, the room you swim into underwater."

Comments

Good luck calling 911

[bakaorg]

Sounds cool, but I think there are some practical downsides to living underwater.  UPS/Fedex deliveries.  Service calls.  Public utilities (fresh water, sewer, electrical, gas).  General safety in the face of disasters becomes much more of a concern.

Water cooling your servers might be easier--as long as the saltwater doesn't corrode your fittings.

Best leave this to plant growth labs instead of primary living quarters.

Re:Good luck calling 911

[Anonymous Coward]

You're kidding me right?

Deliveries go to a PO box at a nearby port (for now, otherwise in the future you can bet UPS will have subs -- business will adapt). Service calls would be handled by the local techs in the /community/, fresh water will of course have to be shipped in or desalinated, poop will feed the plants (or the kelp, it's the freakin ocean, plenty of things poop in it as-is (including us)), electric comes from whatever the handiest source happens to be (there's always tidal but I would say geothermic will become dominant, it might even drive research for these habitats). Who the hell would use gas down there? Hello, closed space...

Concerning natural disasters I'd probably want to be at the bottom of the ocean during anything you can possibly think of, so long as i'm not sitting on top of one of the many fault lines that are under the ocean. You would be untouched by pretty much anything else short of a catastrophic impact event. Aliens might even miss you when they scan the planet while invading, for all the good it would do!

Watercooling your servers would be a nightmare, salt corrodes such things quickly. It'll be bad enough with the salt water in the air. Would make for a good intercooler for an oil bath of some kind though!

I think it's possible and expect to see it within my lifetime. I just don't think many people will buy in to it but we're not really "there" yet. But we will be.

Re:Good luck calling 911

[OrangeCatholic]

Yeah I'm torn between "visionary" and "crackpot." Besides the beautiful scenery, what exactly is the purpose of living underwater? You can't go outside. You won't have any neighbors per se. The whole house has got to be completely self-sufficient, which means expensive and perfect, and you can't make improvements to it. So much for teaching your kids to play baseball or mowing the lawn. And the lack of sunshine is a psychological disaster waiting to happen.

In short, I think you're going to spend the entire time wanting to go to the surface, so you can go shopping, eat at a restaurant, hold down a job, or make friends. Forced exile is useful...how?

Re:Cousteau

[sheehaje]

With 1960's technology. He said in the video that it was impractical to do it back then. But using modern technology it could be.

While I wouldn't want to live underwater myself, if this is done responsibly I am all for it. We talk about colonizing space, this is actually a step in that direction, and a lot cheaper and will push the same types of technology if we are ever going to colonize space.

ob. Futurama quote (re: same tech for space &

[Anonymous Coward]

Leela: "Five thousand feet!"
Farnsworth: "Dear Lord! That's over one hundred and fifty athmospheres of pressure."
Fry: "How many athmospheres can the ship withstand?"
Farnsworth: "Well, it's a space ship. So I'd say anywhere between zero and one."

Why?

[DavidShor]

I just can't see the motivation for living underwater, outside of a couple of tiny niches like deep-sea mining or off-shore oil drilling. The latest estimates are that world population will level off fairly soon, and there really is no shortage of land. Even for eccentrics who want to live in isolation near the water, it would probably be cheaper and logistically easier to build a cottage somewhere on the coast line far away from the city.

.

Some people have brought up sea-steading or escaping tyrannical governments, but wouldn't a cruise ships fill that role more effectively at a fraction of the cost? (That's assuming the thinking of the movement is sound. The French are not exactly tyrants, but they had no problem bombing that green-peace vessel in the 80's. If you're rich enough to live in an underwater city, you're probably better off buying your way into to a nice Western Country...)

Maybe I'm missing something. Feel free to fill me in.

You have to look with better eyes than that.

[zippthorne]

There have been underwater habitats off of key largo for a while now, since the sixties, at least, and from what I've seen (in ads for UW vacations, and a discovery special about a UMD research vessel) they're pretty cramped. Also, they're saturation dives albeit shallow ones.

I wouldn't want to live in anything with a moon pool for the saturation reason alone, leaving out the small space and constant danger. It certainly wouldn't be a good place to raise a family (what would extended saturation dives do for children's developing bones, I wonder.)

Considering the expense and danger, these things will always be just a curiosity. A pretty neat one, though. I wish they'd kept the Abyss set open for dive tourism. That would've been a pretty awesome dive.

Re:ob. Futurama quote (re: same tech for space &am

[Anonymous Coward]

No idea why you were modded insightful. Big deal that the hulls are subject to different design ideals. A hardcover book will resist bending more than the paperback version. Still the same story on the inside.

There couldn't possibly be any crossover for oh.. I don't know.. say sustainable atmosphere recycling, waste management, or food production.

Re:Cousteau

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The trouble is, if you have the technology needed to build a modestly self-sustaining(ie. trade is perfectly ok; but it can't simply be a subsidized tech demo or a tourist-trap for the extremely rich) underwater colony, you almost certainly could use very similar tech to build in all but the most hostile parts of the earth's land area for substantially less money. Or, if the technology is deeply tied to the sea in some way, surface vessels are (comparatively) cheap and easy. That is what drives the point of practicality out even further, quite probably to an undefined point in the future. Not only is the tech Just Not There Yet; but almost every advance in the direction of getting it there will make living on marginal land easier and cheaper even faster than it will make living underwater easier and cheaper.

Since you are immersed in salt water, any sort of agriculture will either involve serious halophiles or highly efficient closed loop freshwater stuff. Hey, look, if you have the tech to manage that in a more or less cost-effective way, you can have your pick of the earth's presently unfarmable deserts, without the cost of pressure resistant naval architecture or the risks of running out of air. Plenty of wind and solar power, too.

If you can generate substantial amounts of electricity, by some workable means, for your little underwater habitat, this implies that you are just an extension cord away from being able to bring large quantities of electricity to whatever coastal region you fancy. Loads of unused or underused coast that would be quite pleasant if you had the energy for some desalination.