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There'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 requi

There'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 ago
At 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.
- BLKNSLVR 2y ago
  But what colour the bike shed?
  - hulitu 2y ago
    > But what colour the bike shed? You can choose between 2 colors: light and dark. See answers.microsoft.com for details. /s
computerthings 2y ago
Or 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 ago
    land 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 ago
      Las Vegas, for that matter, cannot possibly exist in the environment where it was built without constant support from habitable places.
baranul 2y ago
Good 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 ago
  We 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 ...)

analog31 2y ago

At 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.

BLKNSLVR 2y ago
But what colour the bike shed?
- hulitu 2y ago
  > But what colour the bike shed? You can choose between 2 colors: light and dark. See answers.microsoft.com for details. /s

computerthings 2y ago

Or 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 ago
  land 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 ago
    Las Vegas, for that matter, cannot possibly exist in the environment where it was built without constant support from habitable places.

baranul 2y ago

Good 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 ago
We 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 ...)