/sci/ - Science & Math

Btw here's the schematics used for both Cameron and Branson's subs. They are sister subs, which raises the question of why Branson's sub failed pressure testing but Cameron's didn't.

I thought James Cameron was a movie director.

If the god emperor Richard Fucking Branson loses to that faggot scifi hack, there will be no reason to go on living.

At what point does this become spam?

>>4018529

At the point when there are other good threads on sci besides these ones. We are not yet at that point.

>>4018529

It's spam. Subsurface ocean living is a fantasy; it's too expensive for the commoners to afford, and too dangerous for them to endure.

>>4018522
>>4018527

Cameron's actually a really solid guy, even if you don't care for his movies. Remember he has also done sea/space documentaries like Aliens of the Deep, and movies like The Abyss. It's not that much of a stretch that he would do something like this and he deserves some kudos for it.

>>4018545

This thread isn't about subsurface living.

....Actually, I have to respond to that.

>>4018545

>it's too expensive for the commoners to afford, and too dangerous for them to endure.

Pic: A commoner in a homebuilt undersea habitat. One of two. He's an Australian marine biologist, they aren't exactly paid like rockstars.

Ambient pressure subsea living is within anyone's grasp now. As in, ordinary people can afford a compact, shallow water undersea vacation home and even build them at home since the tech has completely matured since the 1960s and the most expensive components have all been miniaturized and commoditized such that you can buy them from Wal Mart. It's the 1atm colonies that ordinary people can't afford, but then individuals on land generally can't afford to buy a town either.

Individual residential cylinders that can be attached to the modular Atlantica colony hub will cost between $150,000 and $200,000 each, less than most middleclass houses. This is due in large part to the fact that they have less interior space (12 foot diameter, 40 feet long) but for those who aren't bothered by it, it remains cheaper than the typical land dwelling.

Here's another such habitat built by an Italian diver's club. Not a government, not a military, not a corporation.

A metal container with electric heat, light, aircon, dehumidification and a compressor that sends air down to it isn't cutting edge technology, and all the unknowns that made it difficult and expensive in the 60s are now knowns. One by one the materials and technology involved have plummeted in price due to being mass produced for other uses.

The only real barrier to undersea colonization remaining is (or was) the absence of organizations to bring people together and focus their efforts/money on making it happen.

Anyway, back to the Race to Inner Space; The subs used, the new tech and materials involved, and who will win.

>>4018545

Hello, Red Cream.

Regardless of what people say Mad Scientist, I think your threads are awesome.

I love hearing about advancements in all fields, even though I'm no scientist.

>>4018617

>Regardless of what people say Mad Scientist, I think your threads are awesome.

Most people around here suck his dick because next to the other tripfags who post nothing but inane shit, he seems like a quality poster. But a tripfag is a tripfag, people should remember that and treat him accordingly. The day we worship tripfags is the day that true 4chan is dead.

>>4018622
Tripfags just give me a name to watch for to read something interesting.

Or avoid like the plague.

>>4018617

I appreciate the kind words, and I'm glad to share advances in deep sea exploration with bros like you who are as fascinated by it as everyone else ought to be.

the rate at which really bizarre new organisms are found by deep sea expeditions is astounding, almost as astounding as the fact that most people don't care because those organisms didn't happen to be found on another planet.

I'm as pro-space as anyone else, but giving no shits about the discovery of creatures like this because they aren't blue cat waifus from Pandora rustles my jimmies.

>>4018626

...And that is why I took on a trip. When I started doing the silly hamster stuff people asked me to adopt a trip so they wouldn't miss future threads about it. If a majority ask me to drop the trip, I will, as I have no special attachment to it.

>>4018631
what is said deep sea creature in pic related? I assume it's some form of seapig? Also is there a database of weird creatures online? I'm trying to look up a weird seacreature I saw briefly in some TV show about a ship wreck

>>4018631
>the rate at which really bizarre new organisms are found by deep sea expeditions is astounding
So what. There are plenty of new animal species found in rain forests too, and they're much easier to study. On the other hand, deep sea organisms don't survive scientific study because they die quickly after capture.

>>4018638

I honestly don't know. A lot of the lifeforms down there are difficult to categorize at a glance as they don't clearly belong to any familiar taxonomic branch. You can look at most any land animal and hazard an accurate guess as to what it's related to. Meanwhile, with many things living in the deepest parts of the ocean it's difficult to even understand how their body works, and how they're alive. Pic related.

>>4018642
Oceanic organisms seem to do wonders for the medical field.

>>4018642

>So what. There are plenty of new animal species found in rain forests too, and they're much easier to study.

New terrestrial species are not found with anywhere near the frequency of new deep sea species. They find several on literally every dive.

>On the other hand, deep sea organisms don't survive scientific study because they die quickly after capture.

Enough of their tissue survives for study that they fuel the bulk of cutting edge pharmaceutical development.

But you're right, we're constrained by our lack of a deep sea research facility. Being able to study these creatures on site and at depth would greatly accelerate marine science. Aquarius is cool but it has been in shallow water studying reefs since 1986. The conshelf is to marine science as LEO is to space science, in either case we need to move on to bigger and better things.

Pic: Proposed hydrothermal vent research outpost

>>4018637
>silly hamster stuff
Explain further please.

>>4018663
I'm not sure if I would like to live in a deep sea research facility.

Shit would be frightening, yo.

>>4018682

Mad built a couple of underwater bases for hamsters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7JujUQkLfQ

>>4018686

>Shit would be frightening, yo.

Yes, but also exhilirating. The outside environment is dark, frigid, instantly lethal and so alien to our experience. And there's a certainty that you are not alone, that other life shares that environment with you, you just haven't seen most of them yet.

It's the last great unexplored frontier on Earth, where there's still room for the brave to make their mark and find something nobody's ever seen before. This is a truly exciting time to be alive.

>>4018699

Look, it's great that there are people willing to go down there and discover shit, but in a deep sea thread I saw an eel with a human face. At that moment I lost any and all desire to ever go anywhere that such an abomination might live. The deep ocean is a NOPE for me at this point as those threads have taught me that horrible nightmare monsters inhabit it, and the only way I can sleep at night is by reminding myself that they can't survive if they come to the surface.

>>4018715
shut the fuck up, reddit. Fucking science man. You don't nope science.

>>4018715
Think of it this way, if you live among those horrible monsters and come back alive, you'll be the most badass guy anyone knows.

Be sure to show people pictures.

>>4018715

What, this cute little guy?

Bonus nightmare fuel: http://www.itsnature.org/what-on-earth/22-sea-creatures-that-will-keep-you-dry/

>>4018715

>an eel with a human face

Pretty sure that image is a fake. I've never seen any comments as to what it really is or where the image came from.

>>4018728

That's babby shit next to the Pelican Eel. Pic related. Pelican eel, hanging out in the deep and being an actual animal that exists no matter how much you don't want that.

6 foot carnivorous squids. Crabs 8 feet across that feast on whale carcasses. Toxic jellyfish ten feet across.

But we want to spend 60 billion to find a microbe on Mars.

>>4018733

Don't forget the possibility of truck-sized Lobster overlords.

>>4018729

It's a real species. This is one region where you don't need to fabricate spooky creatures, actual ones are plentiful.

Pic related, same eel.

Eeels do not phase me. They can look as creepy as they want but they are small and can't do much harm.

But look at this thing. The 'chimera fish', aka ghost shark. largely unchanged for hundreds of millions of years. This one's a juvenile. We have never seen an adult.

>>4018663

Hydrothermal research base is a great idea but also completely nuts. Lets do it.

The Branson/Cameron dive off sounds like an episode of How Billionaires Die. Cameron has significant dive time and actual records but Branson is somewhat of a wildcat. Space and aerial adventure is somewhat more forgiving than deep diving.

>>4018743
Looks like a moray, in relatively shallow water. Note the plant life.

Sup gais. Me? Oh not much. Just existing whether you like it or not.

>>4018735
OMFG!
I'll need a tree load of lemons and a dairy of butter!

>>4018743

Holy crap if that's no Shoop that is so creepy it's hard to look at.

What was the creature in Dante's Hell? The Lamae or Larva? Like the first stage of a tortured soul. Yeah, right there in Davie Jones.

>>4018748
That thing is awesome.

I want one.

>>4018743

He looks less human-faced now that we have this angle.

And now I see what I confused for a human-ish mouth was just skin, and it has a more eel-like mouth above it.

>>4018749

I love it. Branson is a rich kid beloved by millions with no background in deep sea who just up and decided to buy his way into it one day, but millions will weep if his sub implodes.

Meanwhile Cameron has dedicated a huge chunk of his life and career to exploring the deep and popularizing it among the public, yet if his sub implodes, Avatar haters will cheer and there'll be jokes about it on Reddit within the hour.

Someone get me some popcorn

But... can we browse the internet underwater?

>astounding as the fact that most people don't care because those organisms didn't happen to be found on another planet.

Really? I'm not surprised. What with how our society is constructed.

>exciting time to be alive.

haha. Wish I can could say the same thing.
I'm anxious about the future. It's as Carl Sagan said, we have constructed society based around Science and Technology but we are also neglecting Science and Technology. It will make quite a spectacle but I don't think I want that to happen.

Just look at the U.S. budget for NOAA. I'm already depressed.

>>4018771
>NOAA

Well fuck, I didn't even know that existed until now.

>>4018771

>But... can we browse the internet underwater?

Yeah. Aquarius has broadband and live webcams you can look at.

>Just look at the U.S. budget for NOAA. I'm already depressed.

At the same time, NASA doesn't have a base on the moon or Mars, but NOAA has one on the ocean floor. It's only on the conshelf so it's arguably no more of an accomplishment than the ISS, but as far as habitats go it's the most sophisticated ever built and there's serious talk of a successor.

A hydrothermal vent research base would be an order of magnitude cheaper than a base on Mars and do ten times more useful science.

I think what you're missing is that discovering any life that evolved on another world would be a huge, world changing event simply because it would confirm that life can exist elsewhere and that we're not alone in the universe. Finding some new species of fish isn't even close to that important.

>>4018814

>I think what you're missing is that discovering any life that evolved on another world would be a huge, world changing event

I don't think it would be. I think an educated minority would be extremely excited and ufo nuts would go wild, but the public would buzz about it for a few months before it's forgotten. In the end, a microbe is a microbe, and the public has a short attention span for anything that isn't prurient.

I think the people who say that on /sci/ are really saying via subtext that the discovery of alien life will finally put religion to rest. It won't, they're already preparing the necessary theological contortions to paint such a discovery as a vindication of scripture rather than any sort of problem for it. They do this for every potentially problematic discovery, that or fight to erode its credibility. They are pros at this and have been honing their face-saving techniques for thousands of years. There are many reasons we might look forward to the discovery of alien life, this is not among them.

>simply because it would confirm that life can exist elsewhere and that we're not alone in the universe.

I think any sensible person already knows this. It's true we can't say it with authority until we find life elsewhere, but the alternatives are vastly less probable. Who seriously thinks that life could only ever evolve on Earth? Are we considering it a real possibility that life doesn't naturally arise, and that Earth was specially chosen to be its only habitat?

>Finding some new species of fish isn't even close to that important.

Except that every example of biological immortality we have is in a sea creature. The most exotic and medically useful compounds discovered have all been products of deep sea organisms. It produces the wildest variety and greatest evolutionary novelty of any biome on Earth and we stand to learn more from it than a trip to Mars.

>>4018506
The future of humanity lies in space, not in the ocean.

>>4018828
This. Why would we as a species want to go back to the ocean?

>>4018780
and would probably be of comparable cost.

>>4018780
>It's only on the conshelf so it's arguably no more of an accomplishment than the ISS
>putting something on the seabed
>the same achievement as putting something in space

what

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

>>4018828

Space is the final frontier. But the ocean is the next frontier.

We will not go to one while neglecting the other. The two are intimately related, and always have been. The life support systems on the ISS and every spacecraft ever launched are derived from submarine life support systems. The suits, the urine processors, the bioregenerative life support experiments, even the propulsion technologies are all derivative of subsea tech. Both are frigid, dark, zero G environs with a pressure differential and absence of breathable air. Our efforts to establish a permanent manned presence in the sea has directly advanced similar efforts in space via the NEEMO program, where astronauts simulate anticipated planetary and asteroid missions by living aboard aquarius and wearing neutrally buoyant pressure suits outside.

Progress in one translates to progress in the other. We're going to the sea next because that's where the resources are, in enormous abundance. This comes at a time when the primary reason space exploration is stagnating is for lack of money and a crippled economy. Access to oceanic wealth is an obvious remedy. It provides both prototyping and resource acquisition for space, and remains the most logical transitional step.

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

>>4018851
>ocean
>zero-g
all my derp

>>4018851
Yeah, we develop space technology underwater, but that doesn't mean we're gonna start living underwater, faggot.

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

No.
Earth, as in land, is the present.

Sage for faggotry.

>>4018851
>We're going to the sea next

Because two millionaires have built subs? Because there are a handful of shallow water labs?

>My cousin's just built a cabin in the mountains. That must mean that in the future, we're all going to live in the mountains!

Just because there are resources, doesn't mean we're going to be building undersea cities. In case you hadn't noticed, we already do get lots of stuff from under the sea, and we manage perfectly fine without going full bioshock. If you want something from the seabed, you drill or dredge from the surface. You don't spend a million billion shekels on nonsense sea habs.

grr 4chan ate my reply
>>4018553
FYI, aliens of the deep is regarded as total shit in the hydrothermal community....so much BADLY edited together vents that are in different oceans....in the same sequence. and i went to grad school with >>4018699 this chick.

in ACTUAL research submersible news, DSV alvin is set to return to service in late 2012....i'm trying to get on the science shakedown cruise.

i think what bothers me most about branson/cameron's projects is that the science was just an addon....not integrated. they're not equipped to take samples or do anything beyond observe (which, while important, is not really that much in the greater picture). from talking with branson's pilot, they lacked a detailed ops plan and a lot of other things you need in order to effectively do deep sea science. really, all i can see thier endeavours resulting in is a 10 second piece at the end of the news. exploration (outer or inner space) is just not regarded highly any more, sadly....and since we've been to the challenger deep before it's not as WOW for joe public.

>>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.

>>4018868
>less than one third of NASA's budget
as a side note to this, the ENTIRE US deep submergence program is run on 3 million dollars. yup, including salaries. that's LESS than the cost of ONE shuttle launch.

>>4018868

>It stays up there because we invested so much in building it that nobody can bring themselves to abandon it.

It's going to be taken apart in the following decade. Russia's going to launch a successor station.

The US is responsible for its attachments and we have no plans for them, though.

Anyway, I have no idea what >>4018844, >>4018862, >>4018866 think they know.

They think we've mastered and exhausted earth by walking over 30% of it.

You people get that the ocean is the majority of this planet, right?

>>4018866

>Because two millionaires have built subs? Because there are a handful of shallow water labs?

Because five (not two) independant individuals and companies are building advanced hydrobatic subs to participate in an X-Prize competition. The same sort of competition that gave us commercial spaceflight.

Because Brazil's government is building deep sea oil rigs and refineries.

Because a French company is building undersea nuclear reactors.

Because undersea hotels and resorts exist with larger, newer, better ones on the way.

Because submarine and pressure helmet tours exist, and now multiple firms have declared intentions to take tourists to the challenger deep.

Because 800 billion in rare earth metals have been discovered in the pacific ocean alone.

Because two corporations are already, right now, mining deep sea mineral deposits with excavation robots.

Because five nations have announced plans for nationalized efforts to compete for those deposits.

Because open ocean undersea fish farms now exist, and undersea agriculture has the potential to multiply the ocean's output of food in the same way that modern agricultural techniques multiplied the food output of farmland.

And most of all, because myself and 151 others are undersea colonists, members of an organization currently building the world's first permanent undersea colony which ordinary people can call home for less than a downtown apartment when rented and less than a suburban house when bought outright, we are fully funded, and on track for completion of the stage one mission at the polaris B site in July of 2013.

>Just because there are resources, doesn't mean we're going to be building undersea cities.

You're right. We'll never have undersea cities. But we will have modest undersea communities that fill a valid niche. They won't be built by corporations to facilitate access to resources. They'll be built by small organizations of enthusiasts who simply want to live underwater because it's cool. The benefit to corporations is that they can now hire 'locals' able to inspect and maintain subsea installations daily instead of once a month or year and with the dexterity and effectiveness of a human being instead of a clumsy hapless robot that takes three times as long to accomplish the same task. (see: Conshelf 3 labor studies)

There are good reasons for a return to the sea. Living there won't be for everyone, but for some it will be a reality. And efforts to colonize the Moon or Mars will benefit from it.

>>4018912

>We'll never have undersea cities

Never say never, captain.

Not as a priority and not in a near timeline.

let's clear up a few things here.
>>4018907
>Because two corporations are already, right now, mining deep sea mineral deposits with excavation robots.
if you mean the group in Palau...they're still surveying and have NOT started processing (met a guy who works for them)

>Because five nations have announced plans for nationalized efforts to compete for those deposits.
>Because 800 billion in rare earth metals have been discovered in the pacific ocean alone.
you do not want to get me going on this. there has been a concerted effort in the hydrothermal community to protect our study sites (with the MMS). already in the gulf of mexico, cold seep communities are protected from potential nearby drilling/prospecting. countries may SAY they wan to exploit vent deposits, but the scientific community won't let it happen. no way in hell. we only discovered these things 40 years ago...we're not letting people rape them before we even understand them.

>>4018924
that should be 30 years ago, not 40....typo.

>>4018924

>if you mean the group in Palau...they're still surveying and have NOT started processing (met a guy who works for them)

The Solwara 1 site, Nautilus Minerals. They are not exporting a product, but their equipment is onsite, their robots have drilled out ore samples and they have been granted a mining lease by the local government. The guy I was talking to seems to think it will never happen. The relevant point is that these are real things that are factually happening, not immaterial plans or daydreams.

>>4018924

>we only discovered these things 40 years ago...we're not letting people rape them before we even understand them.

I actually agree with this. There's only two things in the ocean you really need labs to study; Reefs, and vents. I'm not so gung ho for undersea industry that I'd support the destruction of the most interesting target for research in the sea today.

What we should really be mining are the rare earth mineral mud deposits. Those are strategically valuable metals and the process of extracting them is less involved (and less destructive) than the process used to mine vents.

>>4018924

If you think China is going to keep their hands off of those metals because foreign scientists ask nicely you're being naieve.

I wish I could give a shit about ocean stuff but I don't. I come to these threads because there's always one person who seems to think for some dumb reason that nobody's going to go after valuable ocean metals and food in spite of increasing scarcity, and it's highly entertaining to watch mad demolish them.

>>4018980

I don't think anyone's denying that the ocean will be full of industrial facilities in the near future. What they're saying is that those facilities will be automated and not inhabitable anywhere except perhaps a small room where maintinence workers can control shit directly if something goes wrong. We automate on land because in many cases it's cheaper than paying humans. We will automate even more at sea because sustaining humans down there is more expensive by far than paying human employees on land, and companies with the money to build shit on the ocean floor have the money to make it automated.

I always enjoy mad's threads but he needs to face up to the fact that when people live in the ocean it won't be very many and they will all be very wealthy. It's a beautiful place to live but also an expensive one, yet another playground for the 1%.

>>4018961
if it's in their own EEZ, they can knock themselves out. and i never said we'd ask nicely. i don't think most people realize how vicious the science community can be when faced with losing their research areas. if they come over into the NW pacific and start messing with shit where i work...heads will roll.

but it's china...i'll believe it when i see it. they've been 'in development' on a deep diving sub for maybe the last 5 years....haven't seen ANYthing come of that. i think one thing people don't quite get is the sheer expense of doing deep sea work, PLUS the necessary refining (it;s not like there's lumps of raw metals...they're bound up in complex minerals that will be a pain to break down). i'm still not convinced that for deep sea mining, the benefit outweighs the cost.

>>4019009
argh, NE pacific...sorry for my bad typing

>>4019009

> i'm still not convinced that for deep sea mining, the benefit outweighs the cost.

Scientifically, that may be true. Economically, it isn't. The math has been done. What makes deep sea mining viable is the fact that deep sea ore is significantly higher grade than any found in terrestrial mines (7% versus 1%). However I am completely on your side regarding vent conservation. We need to put a lab down there so that the kind of daily in depth study of reefs that Aquarius makes possible can happen around vents, and we can come to know vent ecosystems as well as reef ecosystems.

>>4019001

But I agree with everything you've said. People get the impression that I think we'll have sprawling metropolitan cities and entire nations beneath the sea. I don't. I have said on a number of occasions that I expect the population of genuine residents of the sea to max out at a few hundred. And yes most will be the wealthy if only because the beauty and novelty of living undersea commands a high premium and every company capable of building undersea developments knows it. However there will at the very least be one community that charges sane rent. Dennis is obsessed with making subsea living attainable for normal folks. It's ideological for him. He is entirely willing to forego the potential profits he could gain by charging what resorts charge. But he's chosen to charge only what's necessary to cover expenses so that the sea isn't forever the domain of the super wealthy, but rather accessible to normal people, even if relatively few are interested in settling the blue frontier.

>>4019045
I disagree strongly. That's very shortsighted. First of all, think how many people practically live at sea already. The crew of any ship spends much of their time at sea. In fact, if you considered all the crews of submarines alone, thousands live under the ocean all the time.

If deep sea mining were to take off, more people would be down there, working mines. They might even grow hydroponic vegetables, especially if they got some sort of power. I'm not sure about ocean hydrology, but, if you're attached to the bottom of the ocean, you could tap currents with something a bit like a wind turbine, whether that's at the ocean floor or on a tether, like those proposed turbine balloons.

>growing food on the bottom of the ocean when you can just go up a mile and get free o2 and sunlight
>using valuable work space to grow fucking tomatoes


DERP

Seriously, this thread is so full of derp.

>>4019065

>The crew of any ship spends much of their time at sea. In fact, if you considered all the crews of submarines alone, thousands live under the ocean all the time.

That's like saying everyone in a car is a colonist of the highway.

>If deep sea mining were to take off, more people would be down there, working mines.

The problem is that the mining sites are on the abyssal plain. The best place for humans to live in terms of pressure, sunlight and the availability of food and energy is the continental shelf at somewhere between 200 and 300 feet deep. You will have communities near open ocean fish farms and subsea reactors, but not mines.

>They might even grow hydroponic vegetables, especially if they got some sort of power.

It's more likely they'd subsist on plants native to the ocean that can be grown outside instead of requiring additional habitat space.

>I'm not sure about ocean hydrology, but, if you're attached to the bottom of the ocean, you could tap currents with something a bit like a wind turbine, whether that's at the ocean floor or on a tether, like those proposed turbine balloons.

Absolutely. The Atlantica colony will be purchasing power from a huge turbine being put in the gulf stream soon.

That doesn't change the fact that there are relatively few companies capable of or interested in seafloor developments, and all of them are motivated by profits. They will charge what the wealthy are willing to pay for the novelty and pleasure of luxury undersea living. The market can only sustain so many of these. The only way for one of them to be affordable for the average family is if the person who builds it decides out of the goodness of their heart to charge only what is necessary to cover expenses.

Dennis is doing that because it's his dream to open the door to seafloor settlement by the average American. I don't know of anyone else similarly motivated and wouldn't count on there being more than one affordable subsea community any time soon.

I am extremely pro-sea development and settlement but I also restrain that enthusiasm in order to maintain a conservative and realistic output regarding the economics of it. There's room in this world for vast automated industry and farming in the sea, but only for a relatively small number of resorts, hotels and living communities. It will happen, but it won't be on the scale shown in science fiction, just as we've constructed a large space station but it's nowhere near what was envisioned in 2001: A Space oddyssey.

>>4019082
If you're a trucker, you basically are.

Is there any possibility of getting down there via untrained labor and blowjobs? Or like space do you have to be a scientist or engineer or something?

>>4019083
I imagine if deep-sea mining takes off, we'll find other things we can do down there, we'll mature the technology to be far more economical, and we'll have miners living on the bottom of the ocean. It seems almost unavoidable.

>>4019082
You would NEED people near the mines, though.

>>4019092

>Is there any possibility of getting down there via untrained labor and blowjobs? Or like space do you have to be a scientist or engineer or something?

You can sign up to be a colonist on the website:

www.underseacolony.com

Our hatches are open to all. Just be sure you're willing to commit to living there as a permanent resident.

>>4019093

This is true but likely to take much longer than expected. In the near term it's only practical for people to live on the conshelf, which is really the most desirable place in the ocean to live in the first place. People may one day regularly work on the abyssal plain, but they'll return home to the conshelf. Nobody wants to permanently live someplace that's always dark, cold and terrifying.

>>4019113
wait, okay, I guess this isn't true. If you managed to seal them off, though, it might work.

>>4019113
Do you have any conception of how bad pressurized environments are for the human body? You'd be insane to sign up to work and live in a deep sea habitat.

We already mine and drill deep sea. We do it without people down there, and it works well. Why on earth would you send people down? It makes no sense. You're talking about mining deep sea as if they're going to be digging tunnels and wearing tin helmets. Look at the way we mine for stuff now, on land. We blow the fucking top off a mountain and then dredge the stuff out, or we dig a massive hole and filter the product. We can do that already in the sea., from the surface. People are not required on scene, and make no sense. Robots do everything already, without requiring large pressure vessels, life support and so on. It does not make economic sense to have people down there. The future of deep sea resource extraction is just more of the same, surface based, using robots to do the stuff at the deep end. There is simply no reason to do it any other way.

But by all means, carry on with your ridiculous stingray-esque fantasies.

>>4019093
>almost unavoidable

fucking whigs

>>4019125

>Do you have any conception of how bad pressurized environments are for the human body? You'd be insane to sign up to work and live in a deep sea habitat.

Yes, this is precisely why the ambient pressure paradigm has been abandoned. The Aquarius is a hybrid 1atm/ambient and there will be no pure ambient habitats ever again. The future is 1atm, that's something everyone in the deep submergence field agrees on. The days of expecting the human body to adapt to deep ocean conditions are over, the new approach is to treat it like space and insulate the body against those conditions with technology.

Still, it's impressive that saturation divers have been half a mile down and returned unharmed. It makes you wonder what a genetically engineered or surgically enhanced human being could withstand. Perhaps walking on the abyssal plain without a rigid 1atm exoskeleton? Now that would be something.

>>4019139
Nigga, if we hit a Singularity, I'm transferring my consciousness into a sustaining nano-cloud the first chance I get. I'll be able to exist in Jupiter*...

*At least the top of it, jupiter has got some wild pressures

>>4019116
I would live in space.

>>4019133
But is it more economical to have technicians there, or to haul the whole machinery up to the surface if something needs adjustment or repair?

>>4019133

Hey, I agree. I'm arguing your side with someone else who has full on seaquest visions of the future.

However, more and more companies are looking into moving equipment from support vessels to the seafloor because if it can be left to operate itself via automation you save money over time versus paying everyone on a crewed surface vessel to linger overhead during extraction.

https://www.google.com/search?gcx=c&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=brazil+plans+underwater+c
ities

Pick one and read. There are also undersea fish farms like the one pictured because materials and automation tech allow it, and it's cheaper than building one on land. Pic related. Other facilities planned for the seabed include nuclear reactors by FlexBlue and power stations from Siemens to handle the distribution.

>>4019133
No need to be so rude about it, either.

>>4019154
Probably cheaper to drop the technicians to the facility. but that would be to easy.

>live under the sea

Live in a cramped, cold, dark metal pod, outfitted like a military sub or prison cell, with the constant threat of instant death, in a ridiculously hard to get to spot? No thanks.

But of course I'm sure you'll tell us that it'll actually be like living in a five star hotel all the time, there'll be huge observation windows from which you can observe the colourful fish happily swim by, you'll be able to promenade your best girl down to the Poisedon theatre every Friday night to see the new Sharky & George feature, and have a 4 course meal at Lobster Joe's Bar and grill on the way back to your undersea penthouse suite in Nautilus hab.

>>4019178

>Live in a cramped, cold, dark metal pod, outfitted like a military sub or prison cell, with the constant threat of instant death, in a ridiculously hard to get to spot? No thanks.

That's how it was in the primitive ambient habs of the 1960s. It doesn't need to be that way. Colonies intended for families, not scientists, workers or soldiers will be furnished, heated and lit accordingly. They will always have less space than a home of the same price on land, but the fact that it's possible to build any subsea living space for as much as a house on land or less is fantastic by itself. There will be no shortage of people willing to live in 480 square feet next to gorgeous coral reefs speckling a seamount rich in life for the same price as a generic suburban house. Not enough that there will ever be underwater cities, but enough for a handful of modest communities on the conshelf.

>>4019178

>Live in a cramped, cold, dark metal pod, outfitted like a military sub or prison cell, with the constant threat of instant death, in a ridiculously hard to get to spot? No thanks.

That's how it was in the primitive ambient habs of the 1960s. It doesn't need to be that way. Colonies intended for families, not scientists, workers or soldiers will be furnished, heated and lit accordingly. Pic related.

They will always have less space than a home of the same price on land, but the fact that it's possible to build any subsea living space for as much as a house on land or less is fantastic by itself. There will be no shortage of people willing to live in 480 square feet next to gorgeous coral reefs speckling a seamount rich in life for the same price as a generic suburban house. Not enough that there will ever be underwater cities, but enough for a handful of modest communities on the conshelf.

>>4019191
If it's corporate housing, which the scenarios you've suggested would lead to, I would expect it to be very spartan.

>>4019195

>If it's corporate housing, which the scenarios you've suggested would lead to, I would expect it to be very spartan.

Whose posts are you reading? I've been affirming that industrial and agricultural installations on the seafloor will be automated, not manned. It was this guy: >>4019154 who is arguing that there will be corporate employees living underwater.

Nothing says undersea living has to be spartan. That's how it was done in the early days because pioneers do tend to live in spartan conditions. They are the first wave, clearing the way for the rest. With today's materials and tech we could absolutely make subsea developments someplace that anyone would enjoy living. The price will scale exponentially with the amount of space you want to yourself, but those content with roughly the interior volume of an RV will be able to pay about what they would for a typical middleclass home in the suburbs. It will have every amenity you now enjoy in your own home, plus access to abundant free food and a uniquely beautiful surrounding environment.

>>4019198
I still think it'd be at least practical to have some sort of permanent structure at deep-sea sites so that workers could dive and work out of the bottom of the sea, but that's probably not a priority of the companies.

These threads are pretty much 100% of why I still browse /sci/. Just tossing that in there. Continue arguing.

>>4019218

The Brazilian subrigs will have a 1atm habitat section where maintinence workers can gain direct control of the machinery if contact with the surface is lost. The Flexblue reactors have a surprisingly large about of habitable space inside although it will be left uninhabited except when inspections or maintinence are needed; the structure is accessed via docking collar that is proprietary and a secret so that only a handful of subs compatible with it will be able to gain entry, for obvious reasons.

There's not much else you can do in an industrial capacity on the seafloor that requires human accessibility.

>>4019224
Okay, that's EXACTLY the sort of thing I meant in the post you just replied to. :D Thanks for informing me.
I imagine if something goes wrong, people go down there, set up in the habitable area, and fix it from within to the maximum extent possible, then leave.

>>4019224
>proprietary secrets
>as opposed to the other kind

>>4019313

>I imagine if something goes wrong, people go down there, set up in the habitable area, and fix it from within to the maximum extent possible, then leave.

Bingo. There will never be employees living there fulltime. They might live in a community on the conshelf though.

A few have told me they would be interested in living on the abyssal plain. The horrible endless darkness and potential to be surprised by some nightmare creature appeals to them. They are a subset of a subset. I'd be very surprised if anyone ever lived on the abyssal plain, it's vastly more demanding than the conshelf technologically and you need enough people to be interested that it's worth the expense to establish a community there.

Who, other than oddballs, wants to live in a frigid sunless world of lovecraftian horrors?

>>4019327
I don't know, a frigid world filled with Lovecraftian horrors would be starkly beautiful. I can imagine everything I saw down there would become beautiful.

>>4019178
Submarinerfag here. Modern nuclear submarines, unlike the pic you posted, are actually quite comfortable for what they are. If they didn't have to carry weapons, support systems for those weapons, and a crew of 170 to operate and maintain the weapons and support systems, the accommodations would be like cheap cruise ship cabins. Of course, the Navy's not going to pay over a billion for a happy peaceful nuclear cruise ship, but there's no technical reason 1atm undersea life needs to be cramped and horrific.

>>4019327
I've been thinking about this and I've wondered if the waste heat and light from human activities might attract more life into the vicinity. Maybe get a small fungal forest growing down there or something.

Also, what kind of health-effects does it have, long-term life in the pressures two kilometers down? Have there been any studies or experiments?

>>4019367
Waste chemicals certainly would. You mightn't bother returning waste to the surface, and pretty soon you'd have poop-harvesting life hanging out under or on the poop chute.

Some people say a man is made outta mud
A diver's made outta muscle and blood
Muscle and blood and skin and bones
A mind that's bleak and a kick that's strong

You load sixteen tons and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in depth.

Surface don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

I was born in the depths where the sun didn't shine
I picked up my tanks and I swam to the mine
I loaded sixteen tons of nodules and ore
And the mine boss said "We'll go over the goal!"

You load sixteen tons and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in depth.

Surface don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

If you see me comin', better swim to the side
A lotta divers didn't, a lotta divers died
One tool of hi-ex, the other of steel
If the right won't get you
Then the left one will

I originally edited the lyrics for a friend who was writing a deep-sea story, but they seemed appropriate.

>>4019485
very nice!

I'm also still awaiting a deep sea or deep space novel in the narrative style of Moby Dick. One that both explains the trade (e.g. whaling) inside-out and shows it as an epic struggle of man against nature.

>>4018743
>MFW
>HFW

I think I figured out how America can beat China!
DEEP SEA RARE EARTH MINING!
Woohoo!

>>4018825
Disagree. The most medically useful compound is almost unarguably penicillin, a bread mold. Even though we've been trying our hardest to make every bacterium in the world resistant, it still probably saves more lives than anything else.

>>4019224
Hey Mad Scientist, if you're still there, can you tell us one of your undersea/futuristic stories? You know, like the ones you did last time.

In return, all of my undersea colony pictures.
Starting dump:
>Yes I know many of you have seen these before. Conversely, many of you haven't.
1/??

2/??

3/??

4/??

5/??

6/??

7/??

8/??

9/??
Mad Scientist? You there?

10/??

11/??

12/??

13/??
shiit, don't got anymore
oh well. Let's hope Mad Scientist shows up anyway.

>>4019937
>>4019969
He's not online, sorry man.

>>4019989
Because I have Mad Sci added on instant messaging.

>>4019975
How can you tell?
I've just been doing archive name searches.

>>4019990
Oh.

>they went back to the ocean

>>4019969
he's busy fapping to your pics.

>>4020002
Hehehe, thanks. Still, does anyone else want to contribute with OC? Or submit a thread-in-image of the various stories people made?

There was a funny one involving routine underwater arc-weld repair and a small crab...

...and the other 9,999 small crabs forming one large monstrocity.

>>4020044
You can try doing key word searches in archive.gentoomen.org

>>4020055
nah, this stuff was over a month old. Unless it was officially archived, it isn't there.
>mfw I don't know that main 4chan thread archival/voting site.

Don't get me wrong but uhm.
What is the point of living underwater?
What would be any reason besides 'because we can?'

>>4020117
Well, there's the exploration for a start.
If we can find a way to live in 1atm containers at over 16,000 psi, it means we can start to research and explore life in the sea and the seafloor.

This could usher in a new age of pharmaceuticals (yay, more power to pharmaceutical companies instead of actual proper cures for shit), and bioscience (as in biotechnology, -chemistry, -engineering, etc.), and underea engineering.

Not to mention we would find new places to mine minerals from the earth. All the oil might be running dry, but we sure as hell haven't even come close to mining all of earths useful minerals and metals.

>>4020117

>>4019193
It won't be the same price as a suburban house. Waterfront properties on land are super expensive and will cost even more when the equivalent of them are built under sea on pretty coral reef areas. Insurance, transportation, and utility costs will also be ridiculously high.

>>4020117
>What would be any reason besides 'because we can?'
Vindication for people with deathly pale skin and basement dwellers.

>>4020152
>Waterfront properties on land are super expensive and will cost even more when the equivalent of them are built under sea
Nope.
When you build underwater, you don't have to worry about anything except structural integrity and airflow. Besides, the reason beachfront properties are expensive is because of the limited amount of land and purposefully hiked prices.

>>4019367
this is one of my favorite photos of alvin....we have so few of it working on the seafloor.

in thanks, have a shot from inside alvin while working on one of my group's observatories on the seafloor, 2660m down.

>>4020262
bump to save one of the few decent threads on /sci/

I'm back.

>>4021712
HE'S BACK
QUICK COLONEL COFFEE, HIDE THE SEA-COCAINE

>>4021712

What would you expect the costs of living would be and what suggestions would you have for someone with low or no income to take part in the Atlantica colony?

>>4022011

Cost will be around $1097 monthly to rent or $150,000-$200,000 to buy. You can sign up to be a colonist on the website: www.underseacolony.com

It's something like a $20 fee to register but that secures your seat once vacancies open up. If it's really something you want to do I'd encourage you to sign up now, as the 2013 demonstration mission is likely to attract a lot of new blood.

>>4021836

I don't have the sea-cocaine.

DO YOU HAVE IT? DO THEY HAVE IT? CHRIST, INURDAES, DO THEY HAVE IT? DO THEY KNOW?

I WILL NEVER FORGET YOUR SACRIFICE, GOTTA RUN MEET YOU IN A MONTH AT THE LOCATION

SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS

Alternatively if you're content to own your own micro habitat, the New Worlds Explorer module is $35,000 unfurnished or $50,000 with the full package. It's trailerable, so it can be towed anywhere with your car and deployed via boat ramp. Pic related. Expect about the same interior space as a trailer or NOAA's old Hydrolab.

If you decide to expand your private habitat, the New Worlds Explorer is modular; Using a hub, you can link up to four of them in a cluster.

>>4022086

Is there any way to generate income on-board?

>>4022169

Telecommuting, or working on the gulf stream turbine that will be generating the colony's power. Possibly also working on a Kona Blue open ocean fish farm if we can swing one of them.

If you own the New Worlds Explorer though, you haven't got much need for income. The battery systems and compressor are powered by an amphibious solar buoy. Exterior lights attract sea life and with hull mounted traps you could easily feed yourself. It's pretty ideal for a surf bum.

>>4022246
>>4022246

Regular bum here.

I think I'll stick with my tumbleweed house.

>>4022246
That sounds like new horizons in hermitry!

I'd like to see underwater classes. Of course, much of the materials used in a classroom would have to come from the surface - maybe there're ways to be more self-sufficient than that.

>>4020239

Beachfront land owners are not going to allow this to scale up. You might build a couple near shore units but they will eventually complain - look what happened with the wind farms of Hyanis on Cape Cod. If you want to scale to hundreds of habitats, plan to do it in international waters.

>>4022297

>wind farms

Except wind farms actually bother people.

They're loud and they kill birds.

The continental shelf is far enough that they'll never be able to tell.

>>4022297

Luckily, a thin strip of the contintental shelf is in international waters. Anyone can build there and it's still reasonably shallow.

>>4022289

>I'd like to see underwater classes.

The expectation is that many of these mini habitats will be sold to universities with marine science programs. Back in the 1960s, lots of schools had their own such stations. This permits them to leverage those same benefits but without the high operating costs that killed them before.

Pic: James Cameron inside the SCAS, prototype for the New Worlds Explorer.

>>4022304

Those weirdos in the Sea Town are doing breeding experiments and disrupting the fish population. And the coral. And the morality of the youth. and

>>NIMBY

>>4022324
I'd live there, but I'm going to end up teaching computer science, or doing CS research. Mail, and what-not, might be a little more difficult down there, and I'm not very often mailing letters, anyways.

>>4022327
I'd like to see them actually pull that off. Then I'll move out to international waters.

>>4022342

The little NWE habs are really for recreational/vacation use. If you want to live fulltime beneath the sea, the Atlantica colony is the way to go. More people, more room, more amenities, and chartered boat service to and from land.

Life as a sea hermit in the tropics does have a certain appeal, though.

How do you poop?

>>4022372

Even the 1998 prototype had a vacuum toilet. Pic related, same as the ones used on airplanes or boats. Bottom feeders handle the waste once its outside in just a matter of minutes.

>>4022383

I don't want some naked guy looking up at my butthole while I poop, even if he IS a 'bottomfeeder.'

Honestly, this underwater living stuff doesn't sound very fun - or sanitary.

>>4022394
Ha.
Still sounds fun, though.

>>4022394

Fish. Bottom feeding fish. You fuckin' guys, really.

It's actually good for your health to live in shallow water. Say, 25-30 feet down. Sealab aquanauts discovered that wounds heal three times as fast under those conditions due to an increase in available oxygen. It also makes for profoundly restful sleep.

>>4022407
But water is the enemy of healing wounds.

>>4022407
I would enjoy it so fucking much, not even kidding, but ... well, I'd want to work down there, not commute by boat. I believe pretty strongly we travel a bit too much already in our day-to-day lives, and going by boat to the edge of the continental shelf and back to teach at a university every day, and then driving around goodness-knows-how-much, doesn't seem like a great use of resources.

If in a few years there are three-dimensional colonies and an underwater university, I will apply to the faculty.

>>4022086
Suppose you can afford it, but what kind of work is available for the undersea residents?

>>4022428

Anything on shore. A boat taxi service will take groups between the colony and shore twice daily. Anyone who specializes in tidal power can find employment working on and maintaining/inspecting the massive tidal turbine that will power the colony, and those with experience in aquaponics can work on an open ocean fish farm. The turbine is a real project, the fish farms exist but mainly in Hawaii, and it's unsure as to whether it'd make sense to have one on site.

>>4022442
If I were in a specialty anything like the skills most needed down there ...

Md Scientist, that Aquarious home ownership thing, do they care whether or not you have any specialties or is it a home, nothing more and with no further responsibilities?

>>4022556

The second one. If you can buy or rent, how you pay is your business. It isn't restricted to those with applicable skills. It's just a bonus for those who don't want to commute to shore daily, can't telecommute, and have relevant skills.

>>4022584
What about wealthy squatters who just make money online?

>>4022602

If they can buy a cylinder outright or pay the rent, they can live there. I don't know how much more clear I can make it. It's not a mission to Mars, it's an apartment complex underwater with a few potential on-site work opportunities that are a bonus but not necessary.

>>4022612
OK, thanks. I just felt that living underwater would have some extra responsibilities. The mechanical upkeep is taken care of by rent?

>>4022616

Yes, except for maintinence of the turbine which is handled by a separate company. Rent will include sewage and air, but not power or internet, which will cost the standard rates.

>>4022616
>>4022621
One thing to me, though, all of this seems shocking that it can stay out there for months without a massive shipyard period where we fix any holes, patch things, refuel and resupply, but when you don't have to move repairs are a lot easier.

>>4022621

How potentially strong is the interwebs? Furthermore, what diving related opportunities will there be? Also, based on what you said earlier, it even seems like you cold hold down some form of job on shore?

>>4023802
It's comparable to mid range DSL. Recreational dives will require heliox due to the depth and be limited to 20-30 minutes for the same reason traditional dives from the surface are (any longer and you saturate). The only difference is you return to the airlock instead of the surface. Because you're at 1atm when you set out you could also head straight for the surface with no risk of the bends and dive for hours at 20 feet or so and be fine, although you'd need to switch breathing mixes on the way up.

To be honest I really intended the thread to focus on the X prize competition for the Challenger Deep, and Branson's plans to make a business from taking tourists there. That is cutting edge stuff.

>>4025663

Despite the danger of contributing to the growing cult of personality surrounding you Madsci: i have to admit /sci/ would get pretty crappy without these threads of yours. I had honestly forgotten my childhood facination with the deep sea. Your threads take me back to Legos to Jules Verne novels.

Soft scifi always depics space as only somewhat large and expansive, full of alien creatures:oftentimes swimming through space. It broke my heart as a child to learn space wasn't like that, But in reality the ocean really is. You remind me of that magic that is the sea, the terror of something that big...and filled with such huge and strange monsters and secrets. Space is so far away and so strange and empty, but we've all been in the ocean:if only up to our waist. If we haven't we can do so so for no more than gas money to get there.We can build our own ships, and see far off destinations. With humans that are only slightly different to us, like the rubber forehead aliens we dreamed about We can go under and find intelligent life: porpoises, dolphins, and octopi. In the case of the octopus we can even bring an intelligent alien home with us. The ocean is the space we always wanted: and we can have it with nothing but a snorkel.

>>4026140
The sea's not scary. It's fantastic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ9WQhQnKNY

I'm starting to go to the gym/pool with my monofin. I'm working on my apnea, trying to train my mammalian diving reflex. With any luck, I'll be able to use the hell out of my breathing gas next scuba trip. I'll also make for one hell of a spearfisherman with my monofin and 1.5mm dive skin.

>>4026158

>deepsea isnt scary
>posts pic of creature anchient sailors thought was a demon

You really believe that the sea isn't scary? there are Lovecraftian horrors down there. its dark, and the sea is trying to crush you. Its really scary deep down. all of that has already been aseerted in this thread, how can you deny the horror?

Don't misunderstand me. that strangeness and need for a new frontier or terrors to brave is exactly why i am interested. i want to survive the sub that gets attacked by a kraken.

>>4026193
I'll admit that I haven't walked in the bathypelagic zone, but nobody has.

I've gone about as deep as a recreational diver can go and it's not really that big a deal. Just some decompression stops along the way.

As far as lovecraftian horror, I can't wait to see the biggest octopus in the world. I'm planning to visit some friends in Seattle this summer and I've already found a dive shop that'll get me close to the Pacific Giant Octopus. Octopuses are generally my bros, so it should be fun.

Granted, there may be something wrong with me. Sharks I've seen while underwater with my own two eyes: silky sharks, lemon sharks, bull sharks, great hammerhead sharks, scalloped hammerhead sharks, oceanic white tip sharks, tiger sharks, nurse sharks, raggedtooth sharks, sandbar sharks, caribbean reef sharks, atlantic sharpnose sharks

It's not all that bad. The bullsharks seemed almost like puppies, curious of who the hell we were.

>>4018868
this was from ages ago but it highlights the bias and ignorance of madscientists argumets.

>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.
pure unresearched opinion, there are lots of new experiments on the ISS you would have to be retarded to miss them on any site so im not going to list them.

>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.

wrong the station was put in a low orbit so the shuttle could use it, it has since been moved up however plans to use the station for construction and refuelling were abandoned long ago for reasons other than orbit.

>It can't be reconfigured to travel to other planets as it isn't designed to withstand the inertial changes.
id like to see Aquarius take a similar trip say 60 million kilometres to mars. you can draw whatever analogies you want but it isn't the same. and the ISS could orbit any planet (if you moved it slowly) just like Aquarius could go to any part of the ocean within its limitations.

>It stays up there because we invested so much in building it that nobody can bring themselves to abandon it.
because its a long term project, with relatively low recurring cost and lots of research left in it. you are not the emperor of science you do not decide what is worth while and what is not, and you give no evidence its even the common opinion around scientists.

>Aquarius ... does ten times the science
[citation needed]
and yes its more expensive, believe it or not at over a hundred million dollars for 20 tonnes of payload, rockets are more expensive than sinking something.

this is not an attach on deep sea research funding, i think there is ample room for both but don't post shit like this.

>>4026412

Why argue about shit you have no control over?

Just enjoy the science.

>>4026412

the ISS is a waste of money. It was makework because we wanted to keep the space dream alive. We know their experiments were worthless makework as well. I think he summed it up quite well as a boondoggle. I want more space exploration too, but shit like the space stations we've built just make everyone yawn. If it cant live up to the hype it is better to have never happened at all

>>4026426

>the ISS is a waste of money
opinion

>It was makework because we wanted to keep the space dream alive.
it was built to utilise existing infrastructure while preparing for long term space flight.

>We know their experiments were worthless makework as well.
tell that to every scientist scientist who ever utilised the ISS. NASA and roscosmos had stations before, they knew what they were in for and it was approved, if they wanted busywork something smaller or even spacelab would have sufficed.

>I think he summed it up quite well as a boondoggle.
>I think

>I want more space exploration too, but shit like the space stations we've built just make everyone yawn.
fortunately science is not based solely on wow factor

>If it cant live up to the hype it is better to have never happened at all.
so JWST shouldn't happen? there is a ton of hype on here and elsewhere about it. virtually every scientific endeavour of note doesn't stand up to public hype.

I stand by what I said about the uselessness of the microgravity experiments that comprise the bulk of the science done on the ISS. Having watched Nasa TV for live ISS events for mny yers, much of wht they do re photo ops, interviews with classroom children and international relation stuff. It's profoundly disappointing. And it is factually true tht the orbit the ISS was put in was chosen for its accessibility to the Russians and that it mde it useless to us as a fuel depot or shipyard. That is a fact. So is the fact that moving the ISS has been brought up many times and shot down every time becuse it cannot survive being moved between planets. You can google this. We might be ble to reuse the modules as habitble portions of a new vessel but the iSS as is cannot be moved from Earth orbit without destroying it.

I am very pro space. We need colonies on the moon nd mars for prctical common sense reasons. They are needs, not wants. Living in the sea is a want, not a need. We go there because it's beautiful and fascinating. When the novelty factor of both has worn off though, I think many will still want to live in the sea, while you will need to coerce people to live permanently on Mars.

What turned me on to sea exploration was the realization that space travel is a means to an end, an that the most interesting destination in our own solar system is an oeanic moon. Unless you plan to go hang out in orbit, your destination is not space, you only travel through space to get there, and then you need aquanaut equipment. Mars is prime colony real estate, but we are vastly more likely to find life in Europa or Encleadus, and a research base on the abyssal plain next to hydrothermal vents would be more scientifically valuable than one on Mars. We will go to Mars to survive, but we will go to our own ocean and the other oceans in this solar system to learn about life.

Pardon the typos btw, I am on an android tablet and it's a bitch to edit out mistakes.

>>4026524
>And it is factually true tht the orbit the ISS was put in was chosen for its accessibility to the Russians and that it mde it useless to us as a fuel depot or shipyard. That is a fact.
not citied though and space station freedom (a purely american venture) shared the same orbit as the ISS roughly 400kmx400km.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Station_Freedom
it wasn't the russians.

> So is the fact that moving the ISS has been brought up many times and shot down every time becuse it cannot survive being moved between planets. You can google this. We might be ble to reuse the modules as habitble portions of a new vessel but the iSS as is cannot be moved from Earth orbit without destroying it.
the ISS's orbit degrades because of drag, because of this it is re-boosted, but there is no reason with a low trust stage it couldn't be pushed slowly out of orbit. like any structure it has stress limits but if these are not exceeded there is no other limitation other than resupply.
and again not a citation

>>4026208
>>4026193
i've never felt scared in the ocean...even the first time i dived in Alvin. there's an amazing period of about 20 minutes after you sink through the photic zone when you see bioluminescent critters floating past the windows, giving a 'warp speed' effect.....you'll see a big blobby thing and think "wow, WTF was that?!"...but if the pilot were to turn on the outer lights, you wouldn't see squat since they're all see-through gelatinous things.

on the soft sediment bottom, 2000m+ down, you see minimal macrofauna. the occasional brittle star or sea cucumber....maybe a rattail fish hanging around, attracted by the light. octopi love our seafloor observatories, and there's a little family around each one generally, using them for shelter in an otherwise featureless environment. they're curious, and we've 'shaken hands' with them before (touch their arm gently with the manipulator and they reach out to grab on like a baby grabs its parent's finger innately).

it's really a magical experience....i can't imagine being scared, even though the pressure is 2 tons per square inch outside. it's like time moves more slowly down there. once we were doing an experiment where we had to turn off ALL the external lights and as much inside as we could (testing a long-distance optical device). it was so dark, and SO clear that we could still see the light from the emitter after moving 500 meters away from it. just amazing.

Tripfag circlejerk thread

sage

>>4026597
Octopuses are intensely solitary creatures. Their parents don't give them a tentacle to touch.

The only reason octopuses seem to like me is because I use my flashlight to point out easy pickings for them to eat during night dives.

>>4026597

I'm very envious of you by the way. How many people hve ever been in Alvin? How many people hve ever been that deep? Fewer than have been into space? And with the new upgrades and larger titanium sphere with more windows, Alvin's really come into the 21st century. Some day there will be pure science submersibles tht can make regular trips to the challenger deep and other trenches. I can only imagine what they might discover. I hope you get to make that trip someday and live to tell us about it.

>>4026597
here's one of the aforementioned octopi, viewed from the starboard viewport.

>>4026524
agreed. i like space too, don't get me wrong.....just the disproportional funding between space and ocean science bothers me. i'll reiterate for the haters....the entire US deep submergence program is run on 3 million dollars a year. and combined, all the people working with NDSF (national deep submergence facility, runs JASON, Alvin, and Sentry) generate FAR more science than is generated by the ISS.

>>4026608
this is probably the only interesting thread right now on /sci/...god forbid we discuss SCIENCE. *eyeroll*

>>4026623
i'm not really sure on the exact number.....i know there have only been like 20 something odd pilots....definitely more scientists/laypeople have dived than have been to space. PIs bring out grad students and lots of new divers every cruise....we try to make sure everyone gets to go once (on our cruises anyways). with ~100 dives per year, that can generate a large number of divers.

as for depth....lots of work happens at the mid-ocean ridge crest, so maybe 1500m down. my work is on the ridge flank, so it's a bit deeper (2500+m). we have a few installations deeper (near 4500m down) that i haven't been to yet in the sub. i'd say many fewer people have been on the deep dives....simply because most of the funded work has been focused at the (relatively) shallow MOR.

yeah, once the second stage of the upgrade happens and we get a TRUE 6500m sub then we'll be able to go to so many more places.....funding will dictate where we go though.

>>4026665
> all the people working with NDSF (national deep submergence facility, runs JASON, Alvin, and Sentry) generate FAR more science than is generated by the ISS.

still not a citation

>>4026687

I'd hope that most of the planned trips are to hydrothermal vent communities. That's where the real science is waiting to be done. They are like the galapagos islands of the undersea world in terms of evolutionary isolationand novel species round the various different vents. Makes me imagine that if intelligent life exists on Europa, their first great voyages of discovery were between their 'home vent' and other vents, just as our first voyages of discovery were between continents/islands.

>>4026695
dude, how many total PIs are doing work in space (not counting telescopes/satellites...ACTUAL work IN SPACE that you do on the ISS)? 10? 20?

in ONE field season, there may be 30-40 different grants that use NDSF vehicles. each of those grants has probably 3-4 investigators. so just in one field season, you've got 90-120 PIs gathering data. that's 90-120 papers AT LEAST. for most of our datasets we can get multiple papers from one set of data because we're collecting so much.

proportionally, for our 3 million dollar program, we're generating A LOT of work. imagine what we could do with a bit more funding!

>>4026731

Let's say the NOAA gets a funding boost, an decides to establish a deep sea research station. Similar in size to Aquarius, but 1atm, with a docking collar for a submersible and an airlock that can be used to deploy multiple newt suits. Where would you put it, what amenities/features would you personally want, and what type of sience would you use it for?

>>4026744
Here, mad, I made this for you.

>>4026870

This would work in water up to 2,500 feet deep, but human beings cannot survive at ambient pressure beyond that limit without significant surgical modification. That puts even the shallowest hydrothermal vents in the world beyond their reach. If anything you would want an ambient pressure station about 30 feet down as a staging area for trips down to the 1atm station multiple miles below.

Someday the technology might exist to put a heavily augmented human being on the abyssal plain. He would need collapsible lungs, a more flexible ribcage, an artificial gill, and a means of flooding every gas pocket in his body with an incopressible fluid. Starfish by Peter Watts is an excellent scifi account of how such benthic transhumans could be created.

>>4026905
Oh well then. how about this: The lower station hwould be of as high pressure as humans can survive in, which would decrease the amount of reinforcement the station would need, providing the room for the equipment to be utilized?
What pressure would that be?

>>4026915
Ands what about the humans being in high pressure suits, witht eh statio being at double that pressure to provide greater reinforcement without killing the stationauts?

>>4026915

IIRC the deepest any saturation diver has been was something like 2,500 feet. There is a limit beyond which your lungs no longer work the way they should due to the air pressure, even with exotic breathing mixtures.

>>4026921
What about my idea of doing double layers?
>pic related

Also, do you use 4chanx?

>>4026940

intriguing and certainly possible, but not necessary. We have materials now that are sufficient for modest spherical habitats on the abyssal plain. Perhaps only large enough for 2 people, but with enough room for a toilet, bunks, fridge, microwave, lab space and so on. There has never been a titanium pressure sphere this large however and it would be tremedously expensive, on the order of multiple ISS modules.

What we cannot do a of yet is build a rigid 1atm exoskeleton that can survive the pressures at much beyond a thousand feet. There's work on a new generation of exoskeleton that will work at 2,000 feet and a ways beyond, but advances in materials tech will one day make possible an exoskeleton with the crush depth of current submersibles like Alvin. Biotech, cybernetics, etc. might also make it possible for modified human to operate at such a depth. With more funding to our deep submergence program we coud see things like this within ten or twenty years.

>>4026940
if you're going to use layers like that, why stop at 2 layers?

A hull within a hull within a hull within a hull within a hull within a hull for a submarine would be very heavy -- but it would widthstand the pressures no problem.

>>4026988
>A hull within a hull within a hull within a hull within a hull within a hull for a submarine would be very heavy -- but it would widthstand the pressures no problem.

Wouldn't work. Doesn't work like that. it would still be all the force of the seafloor pressure on the central chamber. It's better to jsut have thick walls and less of a pressure dfferential.

>>4026982
>There has never been a titanium pressure sphere this large however and it would be tremedously expensive, on the order of multiple ISS modules.
Which is why i put forwards my pressure differential module. Same price, but more space, costeffecitve IIRC.

>>4026993

It's an interesting concept, but if you have to perform all work inside of it wearing a 1atm exoskeleton I don't see the point. It would be better to have a 1atm habitat with a thick titanium hull, borosilicate windows, and a deep submergence research submersible that attaches to the habitat via docking collar.

Alternatively for a lower cost, you could situate a 1atm habitat on the edge of the conshelf at perhaps 800 feet, and use it to send frequent submersible expeditions to the abyssal plain. Using a habitat as the 'mothership' for a full ocean depth submersible would negate the need for a large, fully crewed A-frame support vessel and permit far more frequent missions.

>>4027039
> wearing a 1atm exoskeleton
No no no, to increase the internal pressure of the station to it's most effective reinforcenment the human must also be under great air pressures within the suit, unless there is something wrong with that idea.

> Using a habitat as the 'mothership' for a full ocean depth submersible would negate the need for a large, fully crewed A-frame support vessel and permit far more frequent missions.
What was my original idea in the other pic with the habitat tethered at 300 feet under.

>>4027042

The issue remains; The occupants of your lab would need to be wearing pressure suits. You can't actually walk around in them in air, they are too bulky. The very latest designs are just flexible enough to permit swimming with fins. The old ones had omnidirectional thruster packs like the spacesuits used for ISS evas.

Materials like rayotek borosilicate glass, synthetic diamond and carbon nanotubules may soon permit suits like these to operate on the abyssal plain. It makes more sense to pursue that than to put existing suits inside of a habitat that they cannot leave. They could exist within that space, but not do anything useful as they would have no access to the outside environment.

If you're looking for agreement, I can offer that on the matter of a 1atm base on the conshelf used to deploy subs. Yours has a tube to the surface though, I don't think that's necessary or desirable, and it would be a submersible (not an elevator) that would deliver explorers to the abyssal plain.

>>4027071
Ah, ok. I was hoping, but it seems I was ignorant.
I justhad the floating station because, hey, short trip, but your idea has more thought put into it.

>>4027078

No worries, this stuff is being taken care of by people more knowledgeable than either of us. A successor to Aquarius has been in discussion for most of a decade now. I don't know anything about it except that it's very likely to be 1atm as that's the path manned subsea exploration is taking. You can only do so much with shallow ambient labs, the NOAA should move its focus to deeper water just as NASA is moving its focus to deeper space.

More cool pics of the ExoSuit:

And a pic of Phil Nuytten in the Deep Worker 2000 he himself designed. Phil is among the foremost subsea pioneers, second only to Ian Koblick. Both are amazing human beings.

>>4027133
Hey, HEY, MAD SCI.
Install these two things and stop being so late to respond!
http://aeosynth.github.com/4chan-x/
Just click the install button if you use chrome. If you use firefox or safari/opera, install this first:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/greasemonkey/

DO IT

sage and reported

>>4027144

I am suspicious. What does this do?

>>4027171
4chanx is an auto update of awesome use!
and Greasemonkey is THE script installer for online browsers aside from chrome, who come with it preinstalled.
Serioiusly, don't you at least have AVG or Avast installed? They'll catch any actual spyware or viruses easy.

>>4027171
Have you done it yet?

>>4027206

Yes. Why so eager for me to use it?

>>4027208
Because I've been bloody tired of you not posting fast enough, and I am CONVINCED it's because you don't refresh very often.

Thus, 4chan X. Is it working? Yu should notice the symbols in the tabs change color whena post is present, as well as a number of unread posts, and on the lower right should e a counter for the refresh time.

>>4027212

Yes, it works. Very interesting features. My apologies concerning the rate of replies, I'll try to be more responsive from now on.

I saw "Deep Rising" when i was 8

fuck the ocean, nuke everything in it

>>4027216
EXCELLENT!
Also, on the top of the thread, any thread, sould be a list on the left of all threads you have made. THey appear as soon as you make one, and only go away when you hit the X next to them.
Also, if you go mouse over the timer there are more option to use.
At the top of the OP post there should be an 'enlarge all images' button, which is awesome.
Also, next to the post number of each post there should be blue links, mouse over them/click on them to see the posts in response to that post: it;s an exellent way to follow a conversation wihtut having to read the whole thread!


What browser are you using?

>>4027226

Chrome. But all of this is off-topic. I very much want to discuss Virgin Oceanic's attempt at the Challenger Deep X-Prize and what it means for future deep ocean tourism.

>>4027232
I'm all ears, bro.

>>4027232
> Challenger Deep X-Prize
>Prize
Money?

>>4027234

Well, the Deep Flight Super Falcon that will be used for the voyage employs cutting edge batteries. It stores enough charge not only for the descent and ascent but to cruise for ten miles along the trench once it's down there. This means unlike the quick 5 minute jaunts into suborbital space offered by Virgin Galactic, visits to the Challenger Deep will be more involved and scenic. The sub will illuminate the environment with arc lamps and record the trip in HD for posterity.

However the sub they are using is single occupant. For a tourism company to make sense the subs must hold a minimum of six occupants. How they will scale up to that is a mystery, since as you increase the size of a pressure hull, the thickness of the walls scales with it non-linearly. I will be very interested to see how Hawkes manages to design a sub capable of safe, frequent trips to the Challenger Deep, but which is spacious enough for six people and comfortable enough for tourists.

>>4027247
>It stores enough charge not only for the descent and ascent but to cruise for ten miles along the trench once it's down there.
Does it take longer to travel when the ocean is that 'heavy' then, or is the battery life just that short?

>For a tourism company to make sense the subs must hold a minimum of six occupants.
>How they will scale up to that is a mystery, since as you increase the size of a pressure hull, the thickness of the walls scales with it non-linearly.
EASY! attach six subs head to tail with hooks!

>>4027237

Yup, ten million for the first group to send humans to challenger deep twice in the same sub.

http://deepseanews.com/2011/07/racing-to-the-bottom-exploring-the-deepest-point-on-earth/