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An Anonymous Investor Is Spending Millions to Make Underwater Homes
- coding123 2y ago[dead]
- bruce511 2y agoThere's been a spate of underwater-living articles lately, and there's no doubt the ocean is an area ripe for research. But to be clear, these facilities require surface support - they are not self-sustaining. Which is perfectly fine (the ISS is not self sustainable either.) So this isn't "humanity moving into the sea", it's "humanity learning more about the sea". Which is certainly a worthwhile goal.
- analog31 2y agoAt the very least they need somewhere for bike storage. And none of us are self sustaining. Humanity needs the Haber-Bosch process and a thousand other things to sustain ourselves at the present moment.
- computerthings 2y agoOr it might be just another variant of the various bunker building efforts to ride out the coming upheavals.
- hiatus 2y ago> But to be clear, these facilities require surface support - they are not self-sustaining. Which is perfectly fine (the ISS is not self sustainable either.) Who made any claims of self-sustaining? And in any case, the water cycle means land and sea are intertwined—life on land is not self-sustaining as much as life at sea is not.
- bruce511 2y ago>> Who made any claims of self-sustaining? No one in the article. But it has come up in the comments of previous articles (and I see in this thread as well.) Life on land is self sustaining. Not in the "we don't need oceans" sense, but in the "we don't need people living in the oceans" sense. Conversely to live in the ocean we (currently) must have people living on land.
- fragmede 2y agoland is a pretty broad stroke though, and there are obviously specific areas of land that aren't self-sustaining, so it depends on how you want to slice it. So if these end up being only slightly more self-sustaining as, say McMurdo base in Antarctica, it doesn't seem like a showstopper for habitation.
- marssaxman 2y agoLas Vegas, for that matter, cannot possibly exist in the environment where it was built without constant support from habitable places.
- baranul 2y agoGood points made. When looking at this, it occurred to me that It could have another goal, which is surviving a nuclear war or some other land based catastrophe. Definitely they are no where near to that being possible at the moment, but give it another 20 years, maybe this will be among someone's or an organization's calculations.
- bruce511 2y agoWe are so far away from living independently underwater that I'd say we're hundreds of years away, if it's possible at all. Energy production. Food, water, air. Resources. Mining. Industry. The harsh environment (salt water, fouling et al.) Even "gravity" (as in, if you drop something underwater, some of it goes up ...)
- rgmerk 2y agoSomebody watched Octonauts as a kid... More seriously, this seems like an elaborate troll of space settlement enthusiasts. It's far simpler and less demanding than long-term settlement in space...and you still look at it and go "WTF would anyone want to do that? Wouldn't it just be easier to send robots down"?
- bb88 2y agoOr that one Futurama episode, "I, roommate" https://theinfosphere.org/I,_Roommate https://theinfosphere.org/I,_Roommate
- nullhole 2y ago"Sure, it ain't one of them la-de-da above-ground places, but if you like dank... forget about it."
- shmerl 2y agoOr may be played Bioshock or Aquanox.
- atmavatar 2y agoWould you kindly come settle in Rapture?
- ANewFormation 2y agoHaha. People just have different drives. I'm definitely a space enthusiast, but also see this as an awesome idea. In the grand scheme of things I think humans will colonize all environments, and starting to master water would open up immense amounts of land, so to speak.
- metalman 2y agoSubmerged habitats are very unlikely to be a thing. Though humans have lived ON water for a long time in large numbers. There are many people living in boats and barges, veritable citys in south asia, and other areas. Submerged structures will suffer from hugely expensive engineering and construction costs, and you dont have to go very deep at all, before the pressure differential is greater than in space. Salt, corrosion, maintenance, wildly complicated and expensive.Air handling will be very loud, and prone to failures, water and waste, will also be extra complicated, leaks will be profoundly unpleasant.If we are talking about high end resort or theme hotels, then , whatever. On the other hand Mega floating and semi submerged structures can be built from any and all materials, and the engineering is strait forward. Still there is a vast amount of barren and waste land ,that can be utilised at much less effort, so none of it makes sense, except situationaly.... Singapor, and such.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- rpcope1 2y agoSo does this mean we get Sealab 2021 in real life soon?
- cycrutchfield 2y agoIf you’re looking for me, you better check under the sea…
- UnreachableCode 2y agoMaybe it’s James Cameron?
- teleforce 2y ago>anonymous private investor, has begun work to create a ‘permanent human settlement’ under the sea This sound so preposterous as work to create ‘permanent human settlement’ in Mars. But if given a choice which one to support with my money with zero probability of any returns, I will much rather supporting sea settlement than Mars.
- delichon 2y agoDo you have so little faith in humans' capacity to make Earth uninhabitable? There's no value to you in putting a few eggs in another basket?
- xnx 2y agoHow would humans make Earth less habitable than Mars?
- ryandvm 2y agoExactly. Maybe we'll muck up the climate here a bit and have to spend some resources to get it back on track, but Earth will never be less hospitable than Mars. And we are probably hundreds of years away from being able to have a self-sufficient colony on Mars. The only reason to attempt to settle Mars is because it represents the fattest international government contract that has ever existed - and I suspect that has always been the primary motivation for the Mars hucksters.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- hwj 2y agoIf these are going to be separate jurisdictions it's probably not as naive as it sounds.
- tazeg95 2y agoAlready done in France in 1962 by Jacques-Yves Cousteau : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pr%C3%A9continent_III https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pr%C3%A9continent_III
- pimlottc 2y agoThat’s covered in the article. There’s even a photo.
- beretguy 2y agoMakes me think about all these underwater horror games: Soma, bioshock, subnautica...
- wkat4242 2y agoBioshock: Reality confirmed!
- woleium 2y agoMy money is on Gabe Newall