/sci/ - Science & Math

As yet no nuclear powered undersea lab exists which can extract oxygen as needed from the surrounding seawater, but the Aquarius Undersea Lab in the Florida Keys[1] makes another illuminating point of comparison; Like the MDRS hab it is used as a space analog (albeit by NASA) because the helmet and rebreather setups used by NEEMO program[2] divers are so similar in principle to space suits, because divers can be weighted against their own buoyancy to whatever precise degree is needed to simulate the gravity on any body in the solar system (or LEO) and because there is no easy return from saturation; once the tissues are filled with nitrogen any attempt to escape by swimming to the surface would certainly be fatal. Only 17 hours of decompression inside Aquarius itself can outgas the tissues sufficiently that a safe ascent is possible.

Like any potential base on the Moon or Mars, Aquarius includes a double door airlock permitting the living section to be depressurized to a surface normal 14.7psi or 1atm if desired; either gradually as part of decompression, or potentially Aquarius could be operated as a 1atm base like Hydrolab before it, keeping the occupants constantly at 1atm and admitting divers through the airlock in a process familiar to any astronaut who has ever completed a spacewalk.

Delivering a watermelon to the Aquarius aquanauts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2_XyAbrQ40

This is one of the only times you get to see footage of a diver going from the surface down to the Aquarius, with a faint view of what the Aquarius looks like from the surface and good footage of the entry process through the moon pool/wet porch. The shimmering air/water interface of the moon pool seen from underneath looks cool.

This isn't nearly as new, but it's the only available footage of a night time dive from the Aquarius. Very eerie and serene:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp5Pqu5Cauk

The 2012 season begins soon for Aquarius. A list of upcoming missions can be found here:

http://aquarius.uncw.edu/missions/2012/

>>4557943
>The resources of the solar system are useful and can be obtained through practical levels of investment. None of that applies to the deep-sea trench environment.

It does however apply to mining the abyssal plain. We're already doing that, it's much more feasible in the near term than mining asteroids:

http://www.nautilusminerals.com/s/Home.asp

>Knowledge must serve a practical purpose, like making money or materially increasing the quality of life (often the same thing).

Undersea colonies in particular serve the latter purpose. To say they aren't useful and shouldn't be built is like saying that Disney World serves no purpose and shouldn't exist. If people will pay for the joy of living in the sea it's entirely valid.

>It's been given decades, you virgin-nerd retard. And it always turns out to be a FAD.

And steady progress has happened over those decades. We now mine (Nautilus Minerals, Neptune Minerals), farm (Kona Blue), vacation (Jules Undersea Lodge, Lime Spa) dine (Ithaa, Red Sea Star) and do science (Aquarius, Marinelab, Baylab) in the ocean.

>If you're spending your own money, then you can decide that. But you're not. You want to spend billions in OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY. And that's where the sin enters the picture.

>Sin

Lol

>>4467880

>what could one major in if interested in this stuff?

Depends what you want to do. If you want to ride in the submersibles and live in undersea labs you're best off being a marine biologist. Marine geologists also frequently get to ride in subs very deep to study hydrothermal vents and to do oil exploration. If you want to design the subs, habitats, suits and so on, be a marine engineer.

>>4089060
>Humans don't live in the fucking ocean.

Then is this picture just photoshopped or something? Because it really looks like they are living in the ocean.

>>4018844

>I've been on a ship that sank in the open ocean. Does that mean I'm on par with an astronaut now?

On par with someone who shot themselves into space unintentionally with no means of life support, yes.

The Aquarius is not just a piece of metal on the seabed, and establishing a habitat on the ocean floor is not trivial. Aquarius is a hybrid ambient 1atm design with an airlock separating the two sections exactly like a base on another planet. Every prior habitat save for hydrolab was ambient only. Aquarius also has an autonomous life support buoy with a microwave link to shore, and has conducted calls to the ISS. The sophistication of its design (which set out to solve the serious design shortcomings that killed off every other national undersea lab program in the world) eliminates the primary expenses of undersea research by employing an autonomous life support buoy rather than crewed support vessel, by having the entire hull be usable as a decompression chamber eliminating the need for a diving chamber for transport to/from the surface and a surpport ship with an A-frame and on-deck deco chamber.

The ISS is a boondoggle in a useless orbit performing the same microgravity experiments we have 60 years of data on already because nobody can think of what else to do with it. We can't use it as a shipyard or fuel depot as originally planned because it had to be put into an orbit the Russians could reach with a minimum of fuel. It can't be reconfigured to travel to other planets as it isn't designed to withstand the inertial changes. It stays up there because we invested so much in building it that nobody can bring themselves to abandon it.

Aquarius is one tenth the size of the ISS, yet does ten times the science, and is maintained by an organization with less than one third of NASA's budget. Recognize the significance of that.

>>1747591

>>but in this case, i really have to ask. why the hell build at the bottom of the ocean when the land isn't full yet?

Because it's rich in resources we haven't bothered to rape yet because they're under hundreds or thousands of feet of water. Because habitat divers remain acclimated to that pressure and can dive all day without decompressing as a result, compared to surface diving which lasts about an hour. Because there are individuals willing to pay to visit and corporations willing to pay to train astronauts and because you're surrounded not only by exotic biomass you can use for fuel and medicines but also an abundance of energy from water currents and deep sea thermal vents.

It's a bit like the ALTAIR computer. Nobody knew what it was good for, because it was unexplored territory.