Creating an Underwater Society?

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by BatM, Jun 22, 2001.

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  1. BatM Member At Large Registered Senior Member

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    Creating an Underwater Society?

    Has anyone seen any efforts to setup an underwater society? I would think that such a thing would be perfect for NASA to go into before it attempts to send a manned mission to Mars. I mean, couldn't someone buy up a piece of land close to the ocean and begin constructing a set of modular pressure domes (with full redundancy, escape systems, and such). Such an effort would initially have applications for underwater research, systems modularization, self-contained systems management, and engineering improvements. Later, such a system could become an underwater society that could grow into new locations as the technologies improve. Isn't it about time that such a thing was investigated? Wouldn't this be safer, cheaper, and have potentially greater benefits than a trip to Mars? Wouldn't this pave the way for a trip to Mars that everyone would view as a safe trip?
     
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  3. Pollux V Ra Bless America Registered Senior Member

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    I smell a new reality tv show! Survivor-The Marianas Trench
     
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  5. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    It sounds like a good idea if we ever need astronauts in mass. Most of the technology needed in underwater habitats for the shallows, so to say, is already developed. It's just there is no need for such an expensive undertaking. If we run out of land mass then maybe that is the solution. But I think that before we'd do that it would be easier to just build up or dig in. You already see examples of that were land is at a premium. Such as in New York City. Sky scrapers and underground transit come readily to mind. A lot of effort was put in to doing these things. And at great cost. But nowhere near the cost of an underwater habitat.
     
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  7. BatM Member At Large Registered Senior Member

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    Expensive? perhaps...

    But it would probably be cheaper than the one of a kind effort that will be necessary to get to Mars (and beyond). The plusses I could see are:

    * modularized, reuseable development techniques
    * development of energy efficiency tools
    * safety system development for harsh environments
    * living off the land (ocean farming)
    * new medical advances from ocean flora and fauna
    * and, later, storage and living rental

    Initial development might be expensive, but it could have potentially big dividends as new technologies came about. Perhaps a multi-national group of corporations would fund it to kick it off and recoup costs over the long-term? If its very modular in its design, perhaps it would start with a few (dozen?) modules and then expand as the modules show a return on investment?
     
  8. Chagur .Seeker. Registered Senior Member

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    Underwater?

    Listen to wet1, BatM. He's giving you straight scoop.

    Sure it might be cheaper than going to Mars, but so would going to the Moon and setting up a colony.

    I don't think you realize what a hostile environment it is underwater, particularly salt water. I think it was Woods Hole that set up, I believe, a five man habitat and had to dump it after about three years due to the expense involved in supporting only those few researchers - everything had to be supplied from the surface: air, food and energy. And, don't forget the buoyancy problem - how do you keep anything of any size down on the bottom?
     
  9. BatM Member At Large Registered Senior Member

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    Underwater Problems...

    I agree that there is lots of problems with living under the water. I am mostly just trying to stir up interest in the idea to see if anyone might come up with ideas on making it a reality (after all, there is nothing that says this forum couldn't work on a problem that will never be actually put into practice). Its easy to shoot the idea down, but could you propose ideas that might make it work?

    I hadn't heard about the Woods Hole experiment. How long ago was the experiment? Where exactly was it done? What did the experiment determine? Could newer technology have made a difference?

    Example: if salt water rusts the steel of the enclosure, perhaps a plastic composite could be mixed into the steel in some fashion?
     
  10. Chagur .Seeker. Registered Senior Member

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    Open mouth, stick in foot ....

    Sorry BatM, it wasn't Wood's Hole. That was another research project. The one I was thinking of is the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary laboratory operated by NOAA and the University of North Carolina and is still in operation. You can check it out at:

    http://www.uncwil.edu/nurc/aquarius/index.htm

    Take care.
     
  11. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    Some of the problems that you encounter are that sea water is extremely corrosive due to salt and depending upon location bateria. I have seen bacteria eat a piece of stainless steel into swiss cheese in about two years. Regular steel will not last very long without protective coatings. The best so far for cost is to coat it in cement. But the cement is very vunerable to shock. It may not breakup and fall off but it can remain and come loose from its binding. This leaves a hard to detect pocket between the steel and the cement. Under pressure the salt water will eventually get in and start to work on the steel. Another problem is electrolysis. The moving current will set up an electrical sponge, so to say, that will take negetive ions from the steel, causing corrosion pits in the steel. I have seen underwater videos of large pocks in the steel caused by teh transfer. Normally you insulate the metal from gound and run electrical current through it. This protects the steel by allowing the electricity to give off the ions instead of the steel.
    To do something like this is unbelievably expensive. Everything has to be brought in from outside. Without a paying business that generates money given enough time even millionaires will go broke. and we are not talking about the necessary facilities for people to live in. The deep sea is a real hostile enviroment. With cold temperatures that will cause hypothermia rather quickly.
     
  12. BatM Member At Large Registered Senior Member

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    Salt Water an Steel

    Hmmm. How have the battleships and aircraft carriers and submarines avoided the problems you describe for salt water (some of them are ~50 years old)? Do they regularly dry-dock these super ships so they can repair and replace the hull plates? Or is it that they don't go deep enough for long enough for it to be a problem?
     
  13. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    Ever see a boat or ship that wasn't painted regulary?
     
  14. BatM Member At Large Registered Senior Member

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    Salt Water and Painting

    All the way down to the keel?!? That would imply that they do regularly dry-dock the battleships (etc.) to repaint them.

    Hmmm. I don't suppose its possible to paint a structure while its underwater? Just musing...
     
  15. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    If you figure out how to paint underwater, the oil companies will pay you a mint for the process. They have all kinds of platforms in the ocean. At present they use an epoxy coating which is then covered by cement. And it's not cheap! Now, I have never been in the navy so there may be something like a rectifier used to protect the ships' hull. I don't know about that. But I do see boats and ships all the time that need painting in the worst way. They don't call them rust buckets for nothing
     
    Last edited: Jun 23, 2001
  16. Chagur .Seeker. Registered Senior Member

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    Underwater?

    And there's something else that hasn't been touched on BatM: marine life! Not only do you have corrosion and electrolysis, you also have marine life to contend with.

    Even wood and fiberglass hulled boats need to be hauled out and the underwater portions of the hull repainted with 'anti-fouling' paint ever year or so to protect them from marine life attaching itself and doing damage (ex. worms, marine plant life and barnacles).

    Again, in many ways the undersea environment is far more difficult to deal with than space.
     
  17. BatM Member At Large Registered Senior Member

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    Know more about space...

    I started this thread because I've heard the statement "we know more about space than we do about the depths of the ocean on our own planet" so many times (Discovery channel and the like) that I finally decided to ask the question "why?" Also, the population curve for the planet seems to be taking an alarming direction, so I think we're going to need new ways to spread out (as well as control) that population. Combining the two issues seemed to be a relatively obvious idea (at least to me). If you assume a pre-existing colony in space or in the sea, its seems to me far easier for people to migrate to the one in the sea. As this thread shows, though, the assumption may be easier to create for space than sea.
     
  18. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    For a long time we have been aware that the population explosion will produce a problem. It's another one of those things that have had several generations of work on it all ready. If it helps there are several tends that are promising but there is no banana at the end.

    • During the war years there is almost always a population explosion. Mostly having to do with guy going to war and girlfriend/wife has itch to ensure survival of the name or most guys gone to war and not as many around the home front.
    • Witness the so-call baby boomers generation. They are near retirement age and there are not as many to support the taxes required to give the retirees the strip end that they paid all their life to receive. Furthermore, businesses will have to find a way to survive with fewer people. There are not enough workers for the amount needed. Perhaps emigration will solve this problem but that is still in the future.
    • The world leading countries show a decline in the birth rates compared to third world countries. The world leaders have been pushing the ZPG (Zero Population Growth) for a long time.
    • Part of the problem with the third world countries is very similar to the USA of old. We have come from out of an agriculture type society to industrial to information and data driven society. In the agriculture society babies are a boon. More to spread the work amongst after they have grown. And there is a lot of work on a farm! In industrial society fewer workers are needed to grow food and they produce more per worker per acre. In the information and data society, well, look around. How often so you hear that we are running out of farmland and that the family farm is almost a thing of the past.
     
  19. BatM Member At Large Registered Senior Member

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    Solutions or Wishful Thinking?

    In my estimation, human population growth is the root of all other major problems now facing the world. I know that, in the time I've been alive, the population has doubled (maybe even tripled) and that, if that trend keeps up over just the next fifty years, the world could become a very difficult place to live (imagine a world of 12+ billion people). In the past, the main solution to lack of space due to population growth has been to move elsewhere. The resources of the world, however, are already strained such that moving to some other obvious location may not be an option anymore (or it won't solve any of the problems being experienced). That leaves more unusual locations to look to like the deep seas and outer space. Expansion into space will allow the growth of humans (as well as its population) to continue unchecked for the forseeable future. Expansion into the seas may ultimately teach us, though, more about living within our means. I'd much rather start the search for real solutions rather than hope that the trends will save us by themselves.
     
  20. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    You are probably more right than you realize. Most of the stuff has already been worked out for mining asteroids, for getting fuel, even for habitats in space. It won't teach us to be more frugal with energy for the taking and space to grow ever which way. Or for a lot of the resources that we take for granted all the easier to get. It would solve our imeadiate needs for most things including the pressure relief for the population.
     
  21. kmguru Staff Member

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    Several years ago, when I was doing some work in Asia, there was heavy interest creating underwater colonies off Japan. The problem is the material to be used. There is a renewed interest due to the advances in metallugy specially buckeyball technology.

    If we find the right technology, that will be great. Japanese will be the first one to expand in to the sea. Being the No.2 economy, they can afford it too.
     
  22. thecurly1 Registered Senior Member

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    For a sci-fi topic underwater colonies are great

    But in real life it would be better to go to Mars. Though sufficently more expensive, with global warming, the threat of the ice caps melting, or an asteroid ending humanity, I think the ultimate purpose of a colony, especially on another planet would be ideal for allowing human kind to flourish after a grave ecological distaster.

    If there wasn't the chance of mankind ending existance on this planet, than I would be against all colonization in other enviroments. There is TONS of space on mother Earth for people to live, though not all of it might be ocean front property in the middle latitudes where it only peaks at 85 degrees in the afternoon. As the demand for more space increases people will move to different places on Earth, with Cali becoming overcrowded, an ideal place to live would be Arizona. Texas, and Florida are already heavily populated and will rise in growth because of Hispanic immigrants. People may consider moving to Louisiana, Alabama, Missouri. The general movement in the US is west and south, just as it has been since the pilgrims landed. Warmer weather, and abundant new housing makes it perfect to start a family in.

    I think it would be intresting to see an undersea colony, but we don't need them as much as we may need a perminate colony on Mars, or a beginners one on the Moon.
     
  23. kmguru Staff Member

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    It is really dangerous to set up colonies in Mars or Moon because the atmosphere does not protect small meteor strikes. If we can terraform Mars, then we can have atmosphere to protect us including a strong magnetic field to protect from solar radiation.

    We can design a habitat drilling in to a large mountain or on the sea floor close to a continental self that will draw energy from earth's core for a long long time.

    What if there are Martina or Venusians underground that lost their technology and can not contact us....just a wicked thought....
     
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