/sci/ - Science & Math

It begins.

>>4663456

Me too. Our future is and must be space faring. But if it makes good sense to farm, mine and settle our own ocean, it will make just as much sense to do the same in the oceans of every planet we settle. It may be our fate as a species to become universally amphibious, especially as by the time we're settling other worlds the difficulty of expanding into their oceans will have dropped to nil.

That defines us as a species. We're the hairless, smooth skinned ape that spends more recreational time in the water than any other mammal. Babies instinctively know how to hold their breath and swim. Oceanic tribes hunt 65 feet down with a speargun. We work our whole lives so that when we retire we can relax on the beach and snorkel in tropical waters. It seems normal but when you look objectively at our fondness for water compared to other mammals it's concpicuous.

That's probably how other intelligent alien species will think of us and what will form the first stereotypes for our species. "Sea monkeys".

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

>>4472360
>We should cut NASA funding and switch it to deep sea exploration = far cheaper and satisfies the need to explore while being much more useful than space shit

We can do both, and should, as the technologies and discoveries are applicable to each other. What we learn about the deepest points in the ocean, especially hydrothermal vents and the technology used to reach and study them applies directly to a hypothetical probe mission to the under-ice ocean of Europa. We know it is geologically active and almost certainly has hydrothermal vents of it's own, and around every such vent on Earth we find thriving chemosynthetic ecosystems. Who knows what we might find on Europa.

You'd want a nuclear pulse propelled vessel (They were originally developed specifically for a trip to Jupiter) and your primary target for investigations should be Europa. There's not much we need to specifically visit Jupiter for as it's a gas giant we cannot land on. We could harvest hydrogen from its outer atmosphere but there are way easier, cheaper ways to get hydrogen so we'd never go just for that. Europa is the most valuable thing in the Jovian system simply because it's the most likely place in the solar system that life could exist.

Of all the fucking things to say about it. Not romantic?

6/??

They will need aquanauts more than astronauts.

>be 45, undersea uranium miner
>late for work, running to catch the next bubblesub to Anglerfish Trench
>lovely name, keeps me motivated.....as fucking if.
>always late for work; don't own a subship; shits expensive
>see bubblesub in opposite end of atrium, people everywhere
>call coming through mah synaptic communicator
>think about answering it. Doesn't pick up.
>fucking trash technology from Aquapple Nervelinks
>should get one of those new Synaptosoft implants. I hear the latest version projects a hologram of any visual image you think about.
>...
>rage about answering that call
>implant finally recognizes thought and call comes through.
>its my boss subvocalisingly yelling at me that I'm late.
>tells me I'm fired. call ends.
>stop dead in tracks.
>fuck
>what do I do now...

>>3646239

It would be too much all at once, but as a plot gradually revealed over the span of the series I figure it's just fantastical enough. Having the show explore Europa would highlight the parallels between sea and space exploration and how the same technology is often used for both.

Pic related, Europan city

http://www.synchtube.com/r/madscientist

Now with yet more videos. Now playing Stephen Hawkings' "Europa's Living Ocean."

>>3235960

>>It's the aliens that set up a base under our ocean.

That's ridiculous. Everyone knows their base is on Europa.

A mission to Europa.

>>3187947

>>its not a movie you could destroy all life in their ocean.

Unlikely, that's actually a movie trope itself. We're careful about contamination because we want to be certain any single celled organisms we find are native. Earth bacteria would almost certainly be unable to infect independently evolved Europan organisms, and if complex life already exists there, then there's no longer a point to worrying about Earth microbes getting loose.

The ending is the typical wide eyed optimist typical of Cameron's works, but the whole idea of alien squid cities in Europa's global ocean is pure nerdgasm material.