/sci/ - Science & Math

>>3669414

>is there something like that (underwater bubble pod) irl?

Yeah.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHV8I_Ck1Jo

Here's what it looks like from the inside. In the book "Dark Life", subsea homes are inflatable membranes like this, with rigid dividing partitions to form the separate rooms.

>>3505050

Actually my plan is to sink a lawn chair and chill with the helmet on at the bottom of the lake. And eventually to have a small partial habitat like the one in the pic hooked up to the same air supply.

>>3480108

>Can the panels withstand the pressure?

There will be no pressure differential between the inside of the helmet and the outside. This is what is called an 'ambient pressure' design. The air fed into the helmet is compressed at the surface and excess vents into the water, such that the air inside is just slightly higher pressure than the water outside. The only stresses on the helmet are due to buoyancy. You can, in fact, have an inflatable ambient pressure habitat because of this principle.

Pic related, inflatable underwater structure not being crushed by nonexistent pressure differential

>>3444611

Yes, a transparent plastic inflatable dome held down by tethers to anchors embedded in the sea floor. Like the dome in this picture on a larger scale.

It remains just as easy to build a micro habitat these days, but with new materials like vectran they can be built as inflatable structures at a drastically lower cost.

This is the underwater bubble room:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHV8I_Ck1Jo
Mainly sold for installation in deep, large swimming pools it's suitable for use up to 30 feet deep and costs less than $1,000 in materials.

It would make an excellent observatory for marine science and ecology students from which they could directly observe the lake or river ecosystem in small groups while conversing with their instructor. It also optionally supports diving helmets, so students could leave the bubble room and explore the lake or river bottom while those still inside could observe them doing so.

For the price, it would deliver a huge benefit to any school with a relevant program and I've suggested they consider marketing it as a teaching tool rather than just a frivolous novelty for the wealthy.

If they're uninterested, once I've completed my own micro habitat I'll make the pitch myself. I really think the experience it would offer students would be extremely compelling and that modern technologies permit it to be safer, cheaper and more comfortable than past efforts.

Of course if we could simply rescue the Sublimnos....but sadly, the current 'owners' don't seem interested in letting it go.

While discussing the cost of living underwater with a friend, the Bubble Room came up. (Pic related)

It's basically just an octagonal steel ring with a nylon net that restrains an air pocket trapped under a sheet of transparent vinyl. It's anchored at all 8 points to weights that keep it down, and air is refreshed (in the consumer version) by way of surface air compressors.

The second version, which the makers plan to sell to pool owners as a sort of underwater clubhouse, is much bigger; big enough to stand up in potentially if you added a floor to climb out of the water onto. It uses much stronger vectran and uses no net as a result, making for a much clearer view of your surroundings.

It seems like these dead simple inflatable habitats could be mass produced and sold to governments/communities in regions expected to flood catastrophically as sea levels rise. For seaside communities that cannot or will not move elsewhere, this could be a Venice style solution that would permit them to preserve their community in spite of the rising water.

Many of these coastal, equatorial communities rely on fishing/free diving/trapping anyway and the population spends a lot of time in the water anyhow. And the dwellings they live in are often smaller than the interior volume one of these inflatable 'huts' could affordably provide. Thoughts?

....And in fact, if you wanted to combine the two ideas, there's a very cheap method for making small but livable underwater areas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHV8I_Ck1Jo

You need transparent sheet plastic, some nylon netting, and an octagon made from welded steel beams. Know someone who welds? Have them knock out some octagonal frames and you could set up a little village of lakebottom domes by the end of the month. :3c

They're nothing you could live in, just little pockets of air refreshed by surface compressors that you could hang out in for a while, maybe space them out so you could swim from one to the next taking breaths and not having to surface.

Here's one of the divers inside the 'bubble room', which they now offer as a standalone product to anyone interested.

This is really a novelty product but it has me excited about the possibilities of inflatable underwater structures. That seems to be the way that space habitats are going, so why not also undersea habitats?