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China Plans To Build A Deep-Sea 'Space Station' In South China Sea (huffingtonpost.co.uk)
China is ramping up its space efforts, it appears. A Chinese company named KuangChi Science plans to launch balloons from Hangzhou, in eastern China. HuffingtonPost reports: China is stepping up efforts to build a deep-sea underwater 'space station' in the South China Sea. If the plans go ahead, the station would be located 3000 metres below the surface, inhabited by humans, and would be used to hunt for minerals. There are also concerns that it would be used for military purposes in territories that are hotly contested between China and other nations, including the Philippines, Vietnam and Japan. The news comes from a Science Ministry presentation that revealed China's current five-year economic plan (till 2020). Despite no further details or blueprints being made public, the presentation ranked this project as second in a list of 100 science and technology priorities according to Bloomberg.
sealab 2020
Here we go! Hope China is focusing on the right Tech Tree with the right Leader!
A permanent sea habitat, and a space station, have vastly different engineering requirements.
For starters, a sea habitat has to withstand positive pressures, and ocean current flows. (At the depth specified, a strong storm swell will shake the habitat pretty good.)
Meanwhile a space habitat needs to be lightweight for launch cost reasons, needs to protect against radiation, and withstand negative pressures well. The sanitation and sleeping arrangements need to consider microgravity.
About the only things the two will have in common are airlocks, power generation, and air reprocessing.
Sealab 2020, China Edition looks like it is just another lame excuse for actions in the contested south china sea.
On other parts of the internet there is a lot of skepticism about China's stated goals for this facility. It smells strongly of manganese nodule harvesting and many analysts think it has a military or intelligence purpose instead. The details that have been released are so sketchy it's hard to believe that it's a legitimate scientific facility, but I guess it's not impossible.
I read the internet for the articles.
Even the article says it. Isn't "space" in space station referencing outside Earth? Not having "room"? Is the title what we would call an oxymoron?
Political circumstances aside, if someone actually plans to build a habitat for humans 3000m deep into the ocean that would be a pretty difficult, dangerous and expensive operation, which on the other hand is much more likely to find new exiting stuff than any of the "manned space exploration tours" to rocky deserts above. Building structures that withstand such pressure reliably is much more difficult than building structures to survive a vacuum. If anything goes slightly wrong in that depth, death is also more sudden and certain than in space.
Bizzaro!
There are also concerns that it would be used for military purposes
Yeah well it's not going to be mobile like a submarine, and we all know that the seabed isn't any less subject to earthquakes and other disturbances, so wouldn't it just be a damned shame if some totally random geological event completely destroyed their undersea base, what a terrible tragedy!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Too bad China isn't keen on building relations. It could accomplish most of its goals more effectively if it could have profit sharing with other governments or something. As much noise as Americans make about jobs lost to China would blue collar workers shed a tear if their corporate overlords were Chinese rather than American? Come on, China get with the program. Be a beacon of light or something, because the way you're going, whatever your endgame is, it's going to be costly.
Various nations have considered harvesting the deep sea floor for minerals, but so far the costs outweigh the value of the material by far. Also, if this was actually meant for commercial harvesting, they would certainly not bother the difficulties to bring humans there, and to keep them alive.
...would be that it would fulfill (in China's eyes) the 'inhabited' clause of the law of the sea, thus entitling them to mineral rights.
Or, they simply say that they're conducting 'research' and exploit local minerals/drilling anyway.
I doubt it's a military base, it wouldn't take much at all to make who ever is inside an instant casualty in the event of conflict. A 'port' for military operations hopefully unobserved by US satellites and/or a nexus for setting up a substantial undersea surveillance network? Either one is likely.
-Styopa
to all thhose people who think we'll all be out of work in the near future because there are no more jobs left. You too can train to drive a bucket excavator two miles below the surface of the earth.
Its all peaceful, till the Chinese coast guard comes 1000 miles from the Chinese coast, and tells you (in the middle of the ocean) that China has claimed all of the international waterway. Basically everything south, east, and west of the Chinese coast for 10,000 miles. They also want the beaches of other countries (since Chinese water is lapping on the beach). And its just a Chinese coast guard ship that's bumping into you (they carefully keep the large guns hidden till they realize that you aren't going to go away, then they try to sink you). Its been international ocean for thousands of years, but now China can afford a navy and wants to grab everything. So this 'undersea station' is just exploratory, except for the military offiicers on it, the reporting back to PLA/navy headquarters, the sensors, mines, guns, torpedoes and logos that say PLA/navy. Apart from that, its all civilian and peaceful.
On other parts of the internet there is a lot of skepticism about China's stated goals for this facility. It smells strongly of manganese nodule harvesting and many analysts think it has a military or intelligence purpose instead. The details that have been released are so sketchy it's hard to believe that it's a legitimate scientific facility, but I guess it's not impossible.
It smells strongly of several things--Intelligence use (e.g. an undersea SOSUS-type hub), military use (becoming masters of the deep sea has massive military implications, especially in an age when satellites can see ships), anti-extinction use (create a self-contained environment in the ocean and you have a facility very well-isolated from the rest of the world), continuity-of-government use, and general distraction (nationalist militaristic projects are great at distracting your population and adversaries from whatever you are actually doing that is more important to you).
Real lawyers write in C++
Am I the only one to think this sounds like a badass way to trial various technologies for space colonization? A substantial amount of the ECLSS tech will be transferable, for starters. I get that everyone wants to be suspicious of China all the time, but they are serious about their space program, and this gives them a chance to be the first to create a continual human presence in a deep-sea habitat. Pretty cool IMO.
So the guy who said "Sealab 2020" got +1, even though the show was actually called "Sealab 2021", but I got downmodded for trying to subtly reference the whole thing with a quote from good old Capt. Murphy.
I expect nothing less from slashdotters.
The thin layer of atmosphere may prove defense-less against threats like Gamma Ray Burts, and colonizing Mars won't save us from them. Learning to live under sea, and building cities deep underwater for reducing the likelihood of our extinction from some types of very low probability catastrophic events is just as important colonizing Mars.
I think they're going to build it in the remains of a sunken WWII battleship.
Sealab 2020 is the old shit one that 2021 was based on.
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That's NOT a space station, China!
Deep Blue Sea....
China knows how to efficiently sink people's earnings to the bottom of the ocean.
Otherwise known as a black lab. Let's see if this one can fetch.