Deep Flight submarines.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.1915025]

First, watch this video:

http://www.ted.com/talks/graham_hawkes_flies_through_the_ocean.html

Basically this guy is radically changing submarine design. From bulbous and slow to sleek and fast, using wings to dive or ascend, rolling and looping through the sea like an aircraft.

Is this a better way to explore the sea? To jet alongside pods of whales? To follow dolphin migration, to chase collossal squid into the depths?

And are there military uses? Seems to be these would be quite difficult to hit using conventional torpedos. Especially if they were modified to allow supercavitating propulsion.

[Anonymous No.1915034]

Nobody cares about the ocean. Physics sucks down there anyway.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.1915046]

>>1915034
>>I don't care about the ocean.

Other people do, however. The world's largest undersea resort is presently under construction, the US currently operates an undersea science lab with plans for another, There's a private ocean floor base for divers called Sea Base 1 under construction near Belize, and the first civilian undersea colony is under construction by Dennis Chamberland, ex-NASA engineer funded by scuba company sponsorships and private donors. The first two capsules will be sunk in 2012.

Pic related.

[Anonymous No.1915049]

how realistic was Michael Crichton's Sphere? Do we really have undersea habitats like that?

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.1915055]

>>1915049

>>Do we really have undersea habitats like that?

We've had hundreds. Most were dismantled for lack of funding after 1970 as the space program was expected to lead to bigger and better things. When it didn't, we started building new laboratories. No nation owns more than one however, and the one in the picture is ours.

More info: http://aquarius.uncw.edu/

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.1915058]

Another shot of Aquarius, and the special saturated diving suits used for maintinence dives. The pressurized helmet permits them to communicate with supervisors inside.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.1915060]

Here's a shot of one of the coolest historical science outposts, Tektite II. While not the largest (that honor goes to Jacques Cousteau's Conshelf III) it has a pretty unusual design.

[Anonymous No.1915075]

>>1915025
this idea seems pretty interesting, and I'd love to see stuff like it used more widespread

[Anonymous No.1915077]

they are manned torpedos, not comparable to military submarines. good odds the military has something similar for exploration/intelligence. actually they probably just use brain-controlled dolphins.

[Anonymous No.1915079]

>>1915060
>>1915058
>>1915055
so then how realistic was the undersea mining platform in The Abyss?

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.1915082]

One thing you'll notice about habitats constructed between1962-1990 is their cylindrical design. This is because the strongest materials available for this use at the time were steel and glass. Hence, lots of cylindrical enclosures and bubble windows.

The next wave of habitats like this one are funding mainly by private institutions rather than governments and while they retain the bubble windows (as they permit you to stick your head a ways out and look around with a better field of view) they mainly make use of flat walled structures. This is because material science has given us stronger, lighter substances to make them from. Some habitats now use hulls made from kevlar, ceramic composites, carbon fiber and titanum to name a few.

There's no longer any need to use geometrically strong shapes to hold out water pressure unless you want to go very, very deep in which case a habitat would require a more traditional spherical or cylindrical shape.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.1915091]

>>1915079

>>so then how realistic was the undersea mining platform in The Abyss?

It's based on actual prototype platforms developed by Jacques Cousteau for the french oil industry in the sixties. (pictured)

Though his team demonstrated that it was easily possible to do the necessary labor and meet quota while living and working underwater, Jacque himself sabotaged the program. He had a change of heart during the course of filming his documentaries. He suddenly went from advocating colonization of the sea to strict ecological conservationism.

[Anonymous No.1915094]

>>1915025
I would agree with calling Earth Ocean except for the hundreds of trillions of tons of solid and molten rock in its interior.

[Anonymous No.1915097]

>>1915091
but so are there those things roving around on the sea floor today?

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.1915099]

Conshelf 3 was actually three separate structures. Two habitation modules, and a hangar for their minisub. Pictured is one of the two living sections.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.1915100]

>>1915097

Roving? Robots, yes. If you mean habitats, they're stationary. The US has one government funded habitat and a few private ones like MarineLab and BayLab.

Pictured; the second module of Conshelf III.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.1915114]

To date, no habitat has been built to withstand the pressure at the average depth of the abyssal plane (2.5 miles deep). Plenty of subs are built to handle it, and both the Trieste (no longer operational) and the Alvin (recently refurbished and operational) are able to venture 7 miles down, to the bottom of the Challenger Deep.

A habitat with a military submarine grade hull could be stationed in the midnight zone near a hydrothermal vent ecosystem. Having scientists on-site and able to experiment on the organisms that make up a hydrothermal vent ecosystem at the pressure to which they are accustomed would do for our understanding of extremophiles what Aquarius did for our understanding of reef species.

[Anonymous No.1915134]

>>1915114
>live on bottom of ocean
>strange earthquake
>lights go out
>switch to backup batteries
>turn on external light
>red everywhere
>oh god we've been swallowed by a gigantic sea monster
>piss yourself crying

[Anonymous No.1915142]

> sleek and fast, using wings to dive or ascend, rolling and looping through the sea like an aircraft.

proceed

[Anonymous No.1915164]

>>1915142

Fuuuuuck I LOVED that game. Was there ever a sequel?

[Anonymous No.1915165]

>>1915134
>oh god we've been swallowed by a gigantic sea monster

Pic related

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.1915195]

Oh hey, now it's a videogame thread. Funny how that happens.

[Anonymous No.1915211]

Why is it that /sci/, one of the most trolled boards, gets some of the best tripfags?

Like this guy, and Filenamefag, and when he's not being a huge furfag CCM.

Meanwhile on /v/ is just endless kawaii animoo avatar faggots who troll all day.

[Anonymous No.1915225]

In B4 somebody chooses the impossible.

[Anonymous No.1915242]

Wow, we could have been building a non-crazy Rapture this whole time...

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.1915251]

>>1915242

>>Wow, we could have been building a non-crazy Rapture this whole time...

Relax, this guy's on it: http://www.underseacolony.com/

You can see his prototype here: >>1915046

The final capsules will be larger but each family will have roughly the interior volume of a Winnebago to themselves.

Pictured are the first two habitats under construction right now. They're modular so more can be added over time.

[Anonymous No.1915266]

>>1915225

Somebody wasn't around for that hampture business I take it.

[Anonymous No.1915439]

>>1915251
wow, this is awesome. best of luck to these people.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.1915504]

>>1915439
>>wow, this is awesome. best of luck to these people.

I'll send along the warm wishes. If this works out as planned it'll change a great deal about how people live, especially those on land set to be consumed by the rising tide as our poles melt.