http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4942002.stm Apparently, David Blaine is currently planning on living in a 2.5m diameter water-filled sphere filled with water for a week. He will be supplied air through a breathing apperatus, feed intraveniously, and urinate intraveniously (nothing i've found said anything about no. 2, unfortunately, cause that would've been interesting). this raises the question: assuming one had a food supply (you can eat solids underwater i think), an air supply, ambient water of acceptable temperature, and some way to dispose of wastes, could a human being live underwater for indefinite periods of time? the only issue i can think of is the same problem astronauts have of keeping their muscles used while in a "weightless" state, but then again, water treading and swimming around could strengthen bone and muscle. i can't think of any other issue. I'm excluding water-loging because i figure a child survives in a womb, which is fluid-filled, so why can't one do that again in their lifetime? are there any other issues?
This reminds me of some experiments with rats breathing heavily oxygenated water. Some researchers put rats into a tank of water which had a lot of disolved oxygen. The rats were able to survive on the oxygen from the water. I never saw a follow up on the long term consequences. I think they were considering some device for allowing humans to explore at ocean depths where the pressure would be too much for any submarine like vehicle.
woah, very cool. that would be even better if we could just breath water rather than have a hose hang from someone's mouth for weeks and weeks. i just thought of another reason living in water would be a cool idea: a human body can survive much, much higher g-forces for sustained periods when submerged in water rather than strapped to a seat. so if a spacecraft were to be made in the future that would accelerate at high gee-forces for constant sustained periods (say a continuous burn to and from a planet to make a year-long trip in just a week or two), it might be a smart idea to make a small water-tank-style living area, where an astronaut (or a few) would live submerged for however long they needed to. that way, they'd live in high gee acceleration with relative comfort.
I read in the Guiness Book of World's Records that there is a danger associated with being in water all the time- desquamation. It means to lose your skin.
then again, i just looked it up, looks like loss of the outer layer, not loss of skin in entirety, so would you come out with skin that was just really red and sensitive? that might not be too horrible really.
in my opinion, the question is not could we, but would we? Ever since we were created, and even when we hadn't evolved into the homo genus, as apes, (and as rats, by a theory) we had never lived in water (albiet the fact that all life had evolve from the sea). Thus, our instincts have been to live at a minimum of few metres from the water, and preferably on dry land. It is not natural for us to inhabit water, as we have evolved to be a land animal with lungs. We get food, air, and sunlight from land. Using technology to live underwater would be too risky, and it would be an extra physical and mental burden on humans to wander around carrying oxygen tanks or something of the sort. Humans, by basic instict, would not want to give up dy land. All of humanities worldly pleasures are based upon land, whether they be manmade or natural. Would you, given the possibility, let go of the mountainside, music, trees, books, TV, forests, land animals, and sports involving running as a physical activity for a life in which you're condemned to sea-weed and fish. I think not. Moreover, we don't have gills. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
so you're saying that we are meant to walk on land, so we should not bother trying to step foot in the realm of aquatic living? try telling this to anyone who has been in space... our bodies are naturally optimized to live, like you say, on land a small distance away form a water supply. but that doesn't mean we can't put ourselves through a lot, lot more. technology lets us do that. risk is something we live with when we strive for that. to say something is "too risky" as compared to not doing anything at all is the attitude that hinders people. it's the reason we never returned to the moon. it's the reason that in a few decades, chinesse astronauts could be walking past the remenants of an apollo lander on the lunar surface asking "what the hell happened to america?". pardon me, it just irks me when someone says something is "too risky" compared to an option of total inaction. but the thing is, all we'd need is oxygen. unless there's some serious issue with living underwater besides that, why not give it a shot?
