/sci/ - Science & Math

>48 minutes
Did you test this at depth?
Doesn't the compressor use more energy the deeper you go?

Or is the increase negligible at the depths you intend to conquer?

>>3708258

>Or is the increase negligible at the depths you intend to conquer?

Bingo, no more than 30 feet, probably closer to 15. I'll be exploring for 10 minutes (measured via stopwatch in a ziplock bag) and then letting my nephew have a turn for 10 minutes. The 18 minutes shaved off will more than cover any potential difference in runtime, as well as give both of us time to trek back to shore.

>>3708296

One is more reachable and isn't that full of repeated disappointments and governmental failure to put a half decent space program.

I understand if someone is REALLY fascinated with space.

I don't understand why one would be REALLY fascinated with the ocean, but there are a great many ocean themed threads on /sci/ nonetheless.

Anyone care to explain it to me?

>>3708285
>stopwatch in a ziplock bag

O_o

Man, I hope I never see you do ad hoc surgery.

>>3708304
>all space programs are failures
Relative to what? Is climbing Everest a failure because it isn't done as quickly as climbing a hill?

Aside from my problem with your comment on the space agencies, I understand your point about the practicality of oceanic utilization.

>>3708335

>Relative to what? Is climbing Everest a failure because it isn't done as quickly as climbing a hill?

It wouldn't bother me if, say, Nixon's administration had not tried (And succeeded) to destroy the space program.

>>3708296
Have you ever watched The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau?

If you think about it, we live on an alien planet of which we have only explored maybe ten percent.

It's not even the deepest parts, there are alien creatures and vistas aplenty at shallower parts.

>>3708296

>Anyone care to explain it to me?

The ocean is a lot like space; The vessels used are a lot like spaceships, the suits used at extreme depth are a lot like space suits, the manned outposts are a lot like the ones we'll use on Mars. The main difference is the ocean is full of life instead of being a barren, cold, radiation blasted desert like every celestial body we're able to visit right now. It's also a comparable technological challenge to visit the deepest reaches of the ocean which remain more mysterious than Mars, as we've only ever sent two people and (I think?) two robots.

Basically it has all the cool trappings of space exploration but with someplace worth exploring and frequent discovery of new life instead of none ever. Pic related, look at this fucking thing. Every time they go down they find some shit that either looks like a pokemon or a brick shittingly horrific alien monster. Why WOULDN'T you be into this?

>>3708354

>>3708354
What is that?

>>3708343
Well space colonization was never the goal. The goals were political and militaristic. You know that. They succeeded in all their goals so NASA's budget was significantly reduced. You and I would have liked it if the goals of the space program had been colonization, but they weren't and we can no more judge them by those standards then we could deem Alexander the Great a failure because we would have liked it if he had formed the first United Nations.

Everything you think is cool about exploring space from a technological standpoint is also present in oceanic exploration, but with constant payoffs in terms of finding new life instead of the perpetual blue balls of finding jack shit on Mars every time.

Now, Europa? They're sure to find at least bacteria. But they'll need deep sea AUV tech for that. The only place in our solar system worth exploring for life happens to be a huge ice encrusted ocean. Do you suddenly give a shit about it because it's not Earth's ocean? Is that what it takes?

It's silly, oceanic exploration is more promising in most ways and more beneficial in the short term yet it gets overlooked because of the gee whiz factor and star trek fantasy associated with space travel. I do think we should have bases on the moon and mars by now, but as criminally underfunded as NASA is at 18.5 billion annually, the NOAA receives only 5.5 billion. That's insane. Our near future is in the sea, not space, and the prototyping and resource acquisition that'll take place there will do more to reduce the barrier to colonizing other worlds than any other endeavor you care to think of.

If space is our future, the sea must be our present.

>>3708416

Bleh, whatever I can invest my time in and gets me away from these people I guess.

>>3708416
I'd give half my sensory cells to see sea habitats hanging from the bottom of the Europan ice cover.

Above the immense depths...

Ia Ia !

HOLY SHIT

MAD SCIENTIST IS A NIGGER

>>3708354
....or they look like this.

>>3708354
I guess I understand you. I suppose the ocean might be cooler to some people, people who are more hands on and want or need something tangible. I tend to like more abstract stuff though. The ocean may have more immediatly interesting things, but it ends. You can only go so deep, you can only find so many new phyla, you can only build so many undersea colonies. Space on the otherhand is limitless. It may take a lot longer for mankind to discover as many interesting things as the ocean has to offer, but it still has an infinite number of interesting things to offer past that point.

But that's just me.

Chief will be proud

>>3708432

It would be amazing to live in one and be able to slip outside through a moonpool wearing just a heated wetsuit and scuba gear. Swimming in an alien ocean with no space suit....

Then again imagine being in that habitat and looking out through a down facing cupola window and seeing only a black abyss below you. The ocean on Europa is theorized to be somewhere in the ballpark of 30 miles deep. The pressure increases more slowly since it's a smaller body with less gravity, but the pressure at the bottom should still be right at the limit of what it's possible for an exceedingly overengineered AUV to withstand. It'll have to be mainly titanium anywhere that it needs to hold out pressure, with acrylic several inches thick even for a small camera enclosure. I look forward to seeing what they come up with.

>>3708461
Aluminum oxide, synthetic sapphire, would be superb for the job.

>>3708486
Transparent aluminum!?!?

>>3708441
Undersea goatse

>>3708445

>The ocean may have more immediatly interesting things, but it ends. You can only go so deep, you can only find so many new phyla, you can only build so many undersea colonies.

The thing is, other planets have oceans on them too. Some moons are entirely ocean save for a solid core and ice sheet. You'll need the same technologies there. You want to find life? You look for water. You want to explore in the water? You need subsea tech to do it.

>Space on the otherhand is limitless.

For us, it is effectively limited to low earth orbit right now. And though SpaceX may soon send men to the moon and Mars, both are frigid deserts devoid of life. Beyond that? Where can we go that is any different, save for Europa, non-coincidentally an ocean world. The universe outside our solar system may as well be a 2d skybox for all that it matters to us. It will be centuries before we have the technology to reach other stars and rather than sit around twiddling our thumbs until then I think we should be exploring the ocean.

>>3708502
>The thing is, other planets have oceans on them too.
It is altogether fitting that we who have sailed the deeps
of space now return again to the sea. This is in many
ways a water planet, and it can be ruled from the waves.
With sea power, rugged terrain can be bypassed and
enemy strongholds isolated. Once naval superiority is
achieved, Planet is ours for the taking.
--Col. Corazon Santiago
"Planet: A Survivalist's Guide"

>>3708502
>space oceans
But you just you favored oceans because they were more accessible. >:(

>limited to low earth orbit right now.
>right now
Hence my theory that people who prefer ocean exploration are more about present and tangible exploration as opposed to people like me who prefer the long-term prospects of exploration.

>>3708532
Mad and fizx, split the difference.

Aquanauts and astronauts should build the Sea Dragon superheavy lifter together.

>>3708537
I'd prefer a deep-sea station/space elevator base station.

I think people like space more because of the prestige factor, not because of a true interest in it.

>>3708532

>But you just you favored oceans because they were more accessible. >:(

Yes, but in the process of developing the tech you need to explore our ocean, you're simultaneously developing the tech we'll use to explore Europa's ocean. It's applicable regardless of what planet or moon the ocean you're exploring is on.

NASA trains astronauts at the NOAA's undersea lab specifically because it's such a complete analog for a base on the moon or mars, and you can precisely weight divers to simulate the gravity on any planet or moon you like. They can also be made neutrally buoyant to simulate weightlessness, as they will be in the upcoming NEEMO 15 mission this October, when they will be working on the exterior of a large artificial asteroid sunk next to the habitat. Pic related.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bB2p0h6rXk

Right now we go into the ocean mainly for scientific discovery and resource acquisition, but increasingly we're also using it as a proving ground for technologies we'll use in space. It's essentially an inner atmosphere with 800 times the density of air in which one is weightless (if they choose to be), very cold (requiring heating elements like in a space suit) in the dark (depending on depth) and in need of an oxygen supply. It's as perfect an environment for simulating space missions as we could ask for, and worth exploring on its own merits to boot.

>>3708532

>But you just you favored oceans because they were more accessible. >:(

Yes, but in the process of developing the tech you need to explore our ocean, you're simultaneously developing the tech we'll use to explore Europa's ocean. It's applicable regardless of what planet or moon the ocean you're exploring is on.

NASA trains astronauts at the NOAA's undersea lab specifically because it's such a complete analog for a base on the moon or mars, and you can precisely weight divers to simulate the gravity on any planet or moon you like. They can also be made neutrally buoyant to simulate weightlessness, as they will be in the upcoming NEEMO 15 mission this October, when they will be working on the exterior of a large artificial asteroid sunk next to the habitat. Pic related.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bB2p0h6rXk

Currently we go into the ocean mainly for scientific discovery and resource acquisition, but increasingly we're also using it as a proving ground for technologies we'll use in space. It's essentially an inner atmosphere with 800 times the density of air in which one is weightless (if they choose to be), very cold (requiring heating elements like in a space suit) in the dark (depending on depth) and in need of an oxygen supply. It's as perfect an environment for simulating space missions as we could ask for, and worth exploring on its own merits to boot.

>>3708546

>I'd prefer a deep-sea station/space elevator base station.

The only reason you'd want that is if you had a legitimate need to move lots of oceanic resources into space without processing them on land first. We don't need to do that with minerals since there are ample minerals in asteroids. That leaves food; setting crustaceans and fish aside, dried spirulina algae makes an ideal food for consumption in space. It weighs very little once dried, it's easily compacted, it's nutritionally complete save for vitamin C and it keeps better than anything currently eaten by astronauts. Moving many tons of compacted dried spirulina to Mars and leaving it to await colonists would ensure a readily available source of food on which they could subsist for several years if need be. On top of that, from a small sample of spirulina and water produced from polar ice they could cultivate their own natural bioreactors in underground caverns capable of absorbing their CO2, producing oxygen, and consuming their waste in order to do it.

See what I mean? Mastery of both sea and space yields potential far in excess of any approach where we try to fly before we can swim.

Pic related, algae biocoil.

>>3708638
>requiring heating elements like in a space suit
actually the opposite is true. space suits are essentially perfectly insulated so the astronauts have to be actively cooled.

>>3708676
Spirulina doesn't have much to do with deep sea exploration other than both are wet most of the time.

>>3708723

Ah right, still there are thermal considerations. In some ways they are twins and in other ways they are opposites. At any rate exploring the sea is what gave us the life support technology used aboard the first space capsules and every vessel or habitat in orbit since then.

It's also the case that many of the same propulsion technologies are used in both the ocean and space. Are you familiar with magnetohydrodynamic propulsion? It's basically a VASIMR engine, but in water. No moving parts, propels water through it using intense electromagnetism. Also, DARPA's new 100 foot supercavitating sub is rocket powered, ejecting hot gas from the nose to create a lower friction air pocket in which it flies like a missile at 115mph.

Pic: A vessel built in the 90s to showcase magnetohydrodynamic propulsion.

>>3708745

>Spirulina doesn't have much to do with deep sea exploration other than both are wet most of the time.

Except that the saltwater strain can be cultivated at sea instead of requiring vast freshwater basins. It's the same reason open ocean fish farms (pictured) are overtaking fisheries built on land; If you're raising a species indigenous to the ocean, what better place to do it than the ocean? Why build a vast concrete structure on land for the same purpose rather than a lightweight enclosure of netting and pipe? Or for algae, planned lilypad shaped enclosing rings in which vast patches of algae can be grown and cultivated.

The ocean isn't just a treasure trove of species unknown to science and precious metals, it's also an ideal place to farm biomass of many types with many uses, some relevant to space exploration.

>>3708785

I'm betting algae tastes like shit, though.

>>3709379

I eat seaweed from the asian markets around where I live. Its pretty tasty, and to my knowledge, its just algae, not an actual plant.

>>3709379
Thats why you don't eat it you feed it to fish and then eat the fish.

>algae
>not an actual plant

>>3709422

What? Whats wrong?