Underwater house

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>What would be the costs?
Your sanity

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>>1222752
you can't use a flamethrower underwater, baka.

>>1222740
I think it'd be cool for a house only under like ten feet of water in the Florida keys. But, even at ten feet, if you had an open swamp in it, you'd get the bends if you only did 1 ascent.

>>1222791
that is only if you have a higher pressure atmosphere. which you can probably get away with at such a shallow depth. given a sturdy enough structure.

>>1222791
This assumes the resident intends on ever coming up. It's 2017. We have drones capable of any necessary human interaction.

>>1222805
If it is open to water pressure at merely 10 feet, you can get bends if you stay too long and only have 1 ascend. It is the length of time that matters most. If the house is completely closed with airlocks then it won't matter if the air pressure is at normal sea level pressure so long as you get in and out quickly or use a tube from the surface.

>>1222740
>Is it feasible to build an underwater house?
Only if you use shipping containers.

Depends what you mean by feasible. Possible yes, practical no.

For a million dollars you could build a small underwater habitat that was safe enough to live in (but nowhere near as safe as an above water house).

It's only 'feasible' in the same way that it's 'feasible' for people to live in space; i.e. the technical problems are largely worked out, but there's no sane reason you would want to do it in terms of cost, health complications, safety, inconvenience, maintenance, ect. unless you're doing it for science.

Take all the difficulties we've discussed about building/living in a bunker, add on all the difficulties of maintaining and living on a boat, multiply them by ten, then through in a bit of shallow water SCUBA for good measure.

When you flush the shitter you can watch the fish chow

>>1222826
I would not use shipping containers, they are not designed to have pressure pushing on the sides

>asleep in underwater house
>spring leak
>wake up dead

On the plus side, you make that mistake only once.

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>>1222934
>wake up dead

Tell me if I'm wrong. At 10 meters underwater you have 2 bar outside in the water and Inside house you will have the same 2 bar. So wouldn't building with bricks and cement, then filling with air be enough?

>>1222860
>living on a boat
do you have links/screenshots to those discussions?

>>1222899
Pretty sure he was taking the piss out of the underground bunker people who use shipping containers

>>1222970
There's also buoyancy to consider, brick and mortar doesn't really work in tension and the roof will be trying to fly off.

>>1222970
>Tell me if I'm wrong. At 10 meters underwater you have 2 bar outside in the water and Inside house you will have the same 2 bar. So wouldn't building with bricks and cement, then filling with air be enough?

That's not how this works, that's not how any of this works.

U will have to either pump in fresh air using a air compressor, or have phytoplankton tanks to make new air or u will run out of oxygen, both will take up a huge amount of electricity

>>1223028
Some other anon said mentioned that the air inside full pull up and the ceiling would have to deal with pulling instead of compression, so bricks are not that good.


So make it a giant inflatable air baloon?

>>1223037
>>1223028

I mean, Im willing to learn tell me of issues you think will surface on this.

>>1223032
It it's a 1 atmosphere hab then the air won't need to be compressed, just pumped in and out, which uses much less power.

Then you run the risk of water leaking in and killing you though.

>>1223038
First off, bricks and mortar are not air tight, water is going to seep through.

Second, you can't build a brick wall underwater since the mortar will never dry

Third, you can't use concrete to construct something underwater, you would have to drain the lake during construction.


Forth, brick walls are good for compressive loads, the stress on this structure is going to be largely hydralic and barometric.

Finding an the hull of an old boat and flipping it upside down and live under it should do the trick?

I really dislike the idea of metal structures underwater as salt water rust things pretty badly. And you can't bring the thing up for maintenance...

>>1223038
Fifth, if the house is three meters tall and ten meters deep the air pressure will be 2 bar at the bottom and 1.99999999 bar at the top, whereas the water pressure will be 2 bar at the bottom and 1.7 bar at the top putting a large stress pushing the walls outwards at the top.

Sixth, the buoyancy of the air in the house will be trying to rip the roof off, and the over pressure (1.99999999 vs 1.7 bar) will also be trying to blow the roof off. Air at two bar is still far less dense than water so buoyancy is largely unchanged.

>>1223045
Cathodic protection would be a must. Add new zinc sacrificial anodes periodically to keep rust at bay.

>>1223046
forgot about pressure gradient. Fuck..
The wall need to be resistant to 3 meters of water. That is a lot.

>>1223042
>Second, you can't build a brick wall underwater since the mortar will never dry

Actually, you must sprinkle mortar and cement with water to keep it wet when building. This is because it doesn't "dry" it "cures" it is a chemical reaction that takes place and it needs water to do that. The main problem is getting it too diluted with water. Underwater building is a thing though.

>>1223049
No shit, you can build a brick wall underwater? Colour me surprised.

>>1223048
Even anchoring this thing so it doesn't tear itself loose from the foundation and pop to the surface like a cork is going to be non trivial. We need nearly half the volume of the house in concrete just to keep the thing from floating.

>>1223052
>No shit, you can build a brick wall underwater? Colour me surprised.

You can, but it isn't advised and you need to prevent dilution until it cures. Otherwise, it will wash away. You also need to use zinc if you use rebar. It is kind of complicated.

>>1223058
>>1223052
>>1223049

They are actually finding cement outside of harbors in old rome that were used as water breakers that is harder than any standard cement or concrete and it is 2000 + years old. Kinda neat stuff
http://time.com/4846153/ancient-rome-concrete-cement-seawater/

>>1223042
They've had concrete mixtures that cure underwater for decades now, it's actually not that big of a deal to pour concrete underwater anymore. If I recall correctly they actually add some pig's blood and other shit to the mixture, it's pretty neat.

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Just going to leave this here...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biorock

>>1223119
this is incredibly slow, inefficient, and creates material that isn't going to be very structurally sound if you try to use it as a load bearing material that's meant to hold back a shitload of water pressure.

>>1223119
Now suck the water out of the cavity and you'll be at a pressure difference, causing the whole thing to collapse in seconds.

>>1223085
That's mostly because they had a better recipe with better ingredients and no self-destructing steel rebar. I think one of the differences in ingredients was volcanic ash as a source.

>>1223136
explode. Putting air inside will make it expolode not collapse. But then it the initial skeleton is made of metal it resist tension very well.

Fuck. I want to grow my own fucking home.
If I make it a 10 meter depth I can go there with no thought about gasses dissolved in bloodstream.

>>1222791
Fuck 10 ft just freedive to it

>>1223187
He said suck the water out, not put air in. A vacuum will cause it to implode.

Air may cause it to implode or explode depending on the relative pressure of the air/water.

Just found out underwater small plastic bubbles work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Phj3lLEtWlk.
Unfortunately can't live in there.

Whaat kind of equipment to turn CO2 into O2 is needed and what are the costs?

>>1222740
Sink a couple of shipping containers and pump the water out.

>>1223373
>Whaat kind of equipment to turn CO2 into O2 is needed and what are the costs?
In a non-consumptive way? Some grow lights and bubblers.

It al depends on the depth.

You can have a house that is 100% underwater with the bottom being 3meters underwater. And it is completely feasible.
It woukd be one story and pretty wide, but feasible. It could have a "riseable" or telescopic hatch to get in and out above waterlevel.

Do you want Hampture? Because this is how you get Hamptute.

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What if you have it connected to an opening at the surface with an underground tunnel? Wouldn't that satisfy a lot of the problems?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uzzt1x2rzc4
This is much safer.

>>1223560
the level of water would raise and flood everything.

>>1223560
That just means that you won't have to deal with high pressure air or the bends if you have a pump running to bring the air down.
That doesn't mean that the water pressure won't collapse your prolapsed cave.

>>1222752
Sealab 2021!

>>1222791
U get the bends at 10 fucking feet?

>>1222818
Thank god right ;)

>>1222934
>insinuating it's a mistake and not an act of kindness from God.

>>1223042
Highly recomend either
>rent a large pump
>dig a pond ona hill side

Hilside is good for this because half the digging is already done and you can put a pipe in bottom with a gate valve or 2 for drain pond if u need repairs.

Mucking out existing ponds is a bitch mother but it can be done. We do it all the time at work

>>1223045
Yeah but like u said maintenance. Youd likely have to beach it or float it and gel coat it anually? And youd need a descent sized boat to live in.

Anything over 8 feet wide (i think) is oversized and needs expensive permits to ship it.

>>1223052
Top fucking kek.

>be me
>hey bros i gotta idea!
>jesus anon what now
>theres no time, i need bricks, motor, tools, and a metric fuckload of broken Volkswagon Transaxles.
>mfw underwater fire pit.
>mfw 1 large and safe air pump to tank and a dozen hoses.
>mfw mosquitos and heat never bother you again so long as the magnesium fire never goes out and the pump is working.
>mfw 100% legit will sink a patio set and do this one day soon just for /diy

>>1223052
Can you use sandbags? Sand, dirt, and even rock screanings is cheaper if it sinks. Lime screanings is under $6 a ton plus delivery here and easir to move than dirt

>>1223108
Mfw the muslims come and i am safe in my pigblood bunker

>>1223560
Yup. Highly recomend redundant alarms an inch or 2 off the floor so u dont wake up drowning also.

Plumbing will be a challenge unless as stated on the hillside, can run a shitpipe on the ground and hide it or get a septic tank system

>>1223560
It would be like if Bunkerbro and Hampture had a baby.

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>>1222823
False

You can according to most dive tables be saturated to 9m/30 feet without any decompression.

>>1222863
Ohhhhhhhmygod

>>1223777
While you won't the bends from being 10 meters underwater, spending weeks/months down there pressurised to 2 bar has other potential health complications, especially if your atmospheric systems aren't perfect.

For one thing you'll be breathing 0.4 partial pressures of oxygen. While this is in no way dangerous to a healthy person it's essentially the opposite of altitude training, long term reduction in red cell count is a possibility.

Humidity will need to be carefully controlled. Compressed air has a much greater ability to hold moisture. Humidity that's too low will dry out your skin and mucous membranes which is tolerable in the short term, long term it can cause serious health problems. Humidity that's too high will also cause problems including fungal infections.

Carbon monoxide and other toxins become dangerous at much lower concentrations...

Ect. (character limits)

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>>1223847
so when did you build your underwater secret base?

>>1223042
>you would have to drain the lake during construction.
well you can sink a watertight box and drain only that, like how they build bridges and such

>>1223867
I'm a SCUBA enthusiast and an RN, studied hyperbaric medicine for a while but never actually worked in a chamber, it's a pretty small field.

>>1223889
>sink an underwater structure
>so you can build an underwater structure inside the underwater structure.

Yo dog, heard you like underwater structures.

In all seriousness though, building the hab on land and later submerging it is the way to go. There's a reason why every underwater habitat to date has been constructed this way. You don't do anything underwater unless you have to, since it's far more difficult and costly.

>>1222934

>not floating a raft with a generator for you power supply
>not keeping an air pump running 24/7

Underwater housing 101 boys.

>>1223038
>tell me of issues you think will surface on this
Haha I got it. "Surface"

>>1222740
http://www.jul.com/

>>1223923
>Running generator raft to compress air
>wind changes direction
>CO from exhaust sucked into compressor intake
>die

ISHYGDDT

yeah i'm thinking about building a house on the moon. it'll be a bit of a bitch, but also very practical

>>1223923
>Not thinking of water turbine generator

What is this, amateur hour?

>>1224540
If the current is strong enough for a turbine generator, it's going to cause other problems for your hab.

>>1223847
You (maybe you) said a person would get a decompression obligation from being saturated to 10 feet. That is what I said was false.

>>1222760
You can in an air filled room underwater senpi

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>>1222899

>>1224714
That wasn't me, I was just providing additional context.

I think a much more realistic goal would be to build a shelter under an island in a small man-made pond.

Once the pond has been excavated you build your shelter in the middle and then you build the island around your shelter.

>>1224773
Just build a moat around the entrance to your bunker.

>>1224776
>not building a small pond and stocking it with edible fish, crawdads, and frogs
>not encouraging game animals to water near your shelter

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>>1224773
Start with a custom deep reinforced concrete barg/floating bunker like an iceberg more underwater that out. Then build the island around it.

>>1224781
that was like my dream from when I was 10 years old. A giant raft with plants on it to travel the world.

>>1223923
love the idea of positive pressure as a form of maintaining the 'hygiene' of an environment..

worked great for every person in my working life

>>1224847
Positive pressure only keeps contaminants out, it doesn't maintain hygiene within the room.

>>1224858
u no wat i mean

researching this kind of stuff now.
>A plastic bottles last 1 year in ocean if exposed to sunlight.

After bottles go to hell mangroves enough to keep the isle floating.

Seriously considering doing it if I ever get a house by the sea.

And then go to high adventure on it.

>>1224814
I'm pretty sure there was some child's cartoon with a travelling island

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Web is full of design on floating islands but only one guy had the balls to build one in the ocean water.

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>>1222740

Ask Lloyd Godson. He's built two, and is nearly done with the third now. Although as you can tell they're more like small forts than houses.

>>1223682

No, he's full of shit. You need to go below 21 feet before pressure is sufficient to dissolve enough nitrogen in your blood for the bends to happen. Source: Scuba diver

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Dumping pics of micro habitats

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From the last "how I make underwater house" thread. It was agreed that a cheaper solution to weighing it down was a second shipping container bolted to the bottom, filled with sand suctioned from the seafloor with a dredge pump. So ignore the dumb shit about buckets full of concrete/lead in the pic.

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The reason most of these are so small is that for underwater structures, cost goes up exponentially with size due to needing more weight to hold down all that trapped air.

Heavy shit is inherently expensive, including transporting it to the shore and safely placing it on the part of the seafloor you want.

>>1225004
I hope you are talking about Noahs island.
Polar bear in charge of an island full of magma that is directed by boulders to steer towards a safe haven for the animals they rescue on the way.

>>1223108
>decades
More like millennia. Well the Roman's did anyway.

>>1225166
>>1225165
>>1225164
Is he growing plants to see if they produce enough oxygen?

Do you know if he published results?

>>1225182

No, they are growing edible herbs and other small crops. The idea is that underwater, at a given depth the temperature will be right for plants all year round with no electricity spent on heating or cooling.

Pests can't get to the underwater domes, so no pesticide is needed. Condensation on the inner walls drips down into collectors, which lead to the soil. Again, no electricity needed, and because condensation results from evaporation, it's desalinated for free as well.

The water surface acts like a lung, absorbing excess CO2 or O2 out of the air and outgassing whichever it's deficient in, constantly seeking equilibrium. This effect is sufficient to support plants, but not humans (without a much larger water surface).

This means life support is free too, no electricity needed. All these perks come at a high cost, the domes are not cheap.

However in very hot parts of the world where the energy cost of desalination, air conditioning, etc. for conventional hydroponic greenhouses is burdensomely expensive, and locals are wealthy enough that they don't care if their produce costs noticeably more, it's a good solution.

That's a very particular market niche which makes growing edible plants underwater economical only in a small number of places on Earth. Dubai is about all I can think of in fact.

>>1225177
Yeah that's it. Never saw it end

>>1225163
So if i built a "house" 40 feet underwatter but had a concrete tube and ladder to the surface i would be okay right?

>>1225192
Very cool anon. Thank u for this.

>>1225236
You would be at normal atmospheric pressure in that scenario, you could be 500 hundred feet under water and you'd still be safe (assuming it would be possible to build a structure that big).

>>1225256
What if the house was at the bottom of the Challenger Deep, with an 11km open air stairwell (with a roof over, because of rain), would the column of air raise the pressure enough to risk the bends?

>>1225392
The atmospheric pressure gradient is exponential, (think about it, the lower you get, the more dense the air, so if you go 1 km lower, the additional kilometer of air above you is denser than anything before), and when you compare the pressure at 10 km above sea level with the pressure at sea level, it's obvious that it would be more than 3 atm at 11 km below sea level (it's somewhere between 3.2 and 4 bars according to some random calculators). I think that could give you the bends based on >>1223777, if I interpret it correctly (3.2-4 bars is the equivalent of diving 105-131 feet).

>>1225392
It would be fine so long as you could keep the structure from imploding.

>>1225152
The thing about mobile ocean homes is that it's much more effectively done in the form of "boats", which you should check out anon...

>>1225495

Go try to live in a boat on the open ocean. You don't have to go very far out to sea before conditions become unfavorable for small surface vessels, even large ones.

The water molecules comprising waves do not travel horizontally, but up and down. That up and down motion diminishes with depth. You only have to go 200 feet down for the surface influence to have vanished entirely. There could be a hurricane right on top of you and you'd never know.

200 feet is also not a hard depth to engineer a submarine or underwater habitat for. Many narcosubs built by South American cocaine smugglers are capable of that depth. Amateur kit subs like the k250 can slightly exceed it.

>>1225498
alternatively, you could attempt to make something large and massive enough that it would be unaffected by the relatively small surface distortions

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>>1225502

You have to go pretty big for that. The waves out to sea get fuckin huge.

>>1225510
>how the fuck are we going to pay for this dumb thing we built honey?

>>1225513
>"We'll start selling Weed. Sea weed."

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>>1225516

>>1225500
That thing must've been drawn by an architect. Only architects are capable of such nonsense.

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>>1225634

Not really. It's just a larger take on the La Chalupa habitat. The cylindrical pressure vessels inside are where people live, the boxy outer hull is there so concrete can be poured in between the outer hull and the inner one to weigh it all down.

The exception seems to be the rectilinear lounge area. Should be fine though, they would just need a hatch between that section and the pressure resistant cylindrical portion that could be shut while decompression is underway.

An underwater tower in a lake with the entrance a hatch in the floor of an pld party barge sounds cool.

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In 2007 there was an Italian reality show set in three underwater habitats, all very close together. Two were for sleeping in, one was a kitchen and common area to be shared.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y910rGTo_9o

It was called Progetto Abissi, aka "Project: Abyss".

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>>1225507
>>1225502

If I make a giant raft of mangroves or reed. How big should it be to resist a storm? IT would cover a large area but be relatively thin (compared to a big ship).

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>>1225174
>shipping container
So it is not good enough for a bunker but good for underwater. Good to know.

BY chance you have any link to the previous thread discussion?

>>1225700
>So it is not good enough for a bunker but good for underwater. Good to know.

Because underground, it's subject to pressure pushing down on the ceiling and in on the walls.

Underwater, if it's ambient pressure, there is no pressure differential. Like turning a cup upside down and pushing it down into water. The deeper it goes, the more the trapped air bubble shrinks, but there is no pressure on the cup itself.

This means you can even make ambient pressure habitats out of flexible materials, it basically becomes an inflatable as seen here: >>1225164
>>1225166
>>1225173

Ambient pressure habs only need to be able to withstand the upward stress of buoyancy. The only downside to this approach is that you can't put it deeper than 21 feet or you need to either limit your time inside or have a decompression chamber waiting for you on the surface.

You also would need to begin using exotic gas mixtures any deeper than 50 feet. This is how the diving bells used by commercial saturation divers operate.

>>1225702
>there is no pressure differential
Wrong, a column of air changes pressure with height at a rate much slower than water does. See the explanation: >>1223046. You need to pump the whole thing to a certain pressure to keep the water down, and the air pressure throughout the habitat is essentially equal, so there will always be greater air pressure at the top than water pressure at the same height. With those half-habitats the pressure difference between the inside of the top of the dome and the outside is fairly small, small enough that the reinforcement to keep the thing on the ground and to stop it from flexing from buoyancy forces are enough to stop the top from expanding and letting more water in, but this probably isn't the case for a larger habitat.

I think it's best not to cement yourself into the ground, but rather to have a few massive harpoon-shaped anchors drilled into the sea floor that you're chained to, allowing you to adjust your depth if necessary.

>but this probably isn't the case for a larger habitat.

Good point, but it's not a problem if the habitat is single story. Cousteau's "Deep Cabin" and GE's Tektite 2 were both 2 story though and had no troubles. A shipping container would be fine.

>I think it's best not to cement yourself into the ground, but rather to have a few massive harpoon-shaped anchors drilled into the sea floor that you're chained to, allowing you to adjust your depth if necessary.

No habitat ever "cemented itself to the ground" but rather weighted itself down using a ballast tray filled with iron ingots. Some did use cement like La Chalupa but again, as weight.

>allowing you to adjust your depth if necessary.

Galathee did this, using a winch to act as a sort of aqua elevator. The winch connected it by cable to a weight that the habitat strained vertically against like a balloon on a string:>>1225176

Because it could adjust its vertical position precisely, it was possible to use it at depths requiring decompression. Deco was performed by slowly raising the habitat at the appropriate rate to let nitrogen safely outgas.

>>1225735
>it's not a problem
A shipping container can't hold 0.3 Bar, that picture of one's roof sagging from 18" of dirt should be proof enough. That dirt would exert a pressure of 0.05 Bar minimum; that container would not survive being underwater without enough reinforcement to make using a container as a base redundant. Not to mention the cost of buying and waterproofing, underwater container habs are simply not viable.

For reference, where p is density, d is height, g is gravity, A is area, F is force, V is volume, m is mass, and P is pressure:
V = d*A
P = F/A
F = m*g = g*p*V = g*p*d*A
P = g*p*d

d = 18" = 0.4572 m
g = 9.81 ms^-2
p_(loose moist dirt) = 1250 kg/m^3

P = 0.4572*9.81*1250
P = 5,606 Pa
P = 5.606 kPa
P = 0.05606 Bar

>>1225702
>You also would need to begin using exotic gas mixtures any deeper than 50 feet. This is how the diving bells used by commercial saturation divers operate.

You don't need exotic mixtures until you hit about 100 feet. If you go to the limit for safe oxygen of 1.4pp then you can go to just shy of 60m on air, which is what, about 180 feet? In reality any deeper than 40 meters is not advisable since you'd be narc'd out of your mind from the nitrogen, but people do it routinely.

In fact the higher pp of oxygen is good, so long as you are below the safety limits for CNS oxygen toxicity, since it reduces the amount of nitrogen in the mix and thus your decompression time. We dive on nitrox mix for this exact reason, although it does limit the depth you can safely go to.

Exotic mixes are generally just trimix (air with added Helium to reduce the O2 content), and helium will cause the bends just like nitrogen.

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>>1225745

This thing is about as sturdy as a shipping container and did fine: >>1225169
>>1225167

There's also the rectilinear "wet porch" of Aquarius, pictured.

>You don't need exotic mixtures until you hit about 100 feet.

Wrong, that's for short durations. If you research why Aquarius Reef Base is at a moon pool depth of 50 feet you will find that's the ***long term exposure*** limit for breathing conventional air at pressure.

>>1225746
More exotic gas mixtures have been tested, but trimix is the best in most situations.

Heliox (helium with added oxygen) is super thermally conductive causing problems with potential hypothermia, and makes communication difficult thanks to the increased pitch. It is also more expensive thanks to the price of helium.

Hypoxic nitrox (air diluted with extra nitrogen) is not used because it would worsen the effects of nitrogen narcosis even further.

Argox and Neox (Argon or Neon with added oxygen) is not used because at the extreme depths it would be useful at, to prevent hypothermia caused by Heliox, the breathing mixture is already difficult to breathe due to its thickness and the increased density of the gas would worsen this.

Hydrox was used in the past to avoid the price of helium, but is not used anymore due to the extreme fire hazard it presents.

Other exotic mixtures are generally too expensive to be worth talking about so the mixtures being tested these days generally revolve around tweaking the amount of each gas in trimix.

>>1225749
>about as sturdy as a shipping container
I've got news for you, that's made to be structural. A shipping container's walls are not load bearing elements, and so lack strength. If you put a grid of rebar behind the walls of a container and welded the walls solidly to it then you'd be fine, but that's simply not worth it in the scope of things. Until you can come up with some info debunking my calculation, I don't think you can effectively argue for shipping containers.

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>>1225756

Here's the exterior of biosub 1. Looks about as strong as a shipping container to me. I don't think it's possible to settle this without actually building a habitat from one and submerging it.

FWIW the Undersea Voyager guys are building a submersible accessible ambient habitat out of industrial dumpsters. They are seasoned bubble heads and marine engineers. If industrial dumpsters can manage the buoyancy stress, why wouldn't a shipping container?

>>1225749
I though we were talking about a diving bell? Pulmonary oxygen toxicity only becomes a concern after about 24-48 hours of exposure for a healthy individual. You don't breathe your bottom mix in the diving bell, you breathe as much oxygen as you safely can at that depth to reduce your decompression time, increasing as the diving bell raises up to 100% at 6 meters.

>>1225759

The thread is about permanent or long duration seafloor habitats. OP basically wants an underwater home.

>>1225758
Oh hey there's that grid of rebars I talked about. If you do that then it's entirely plausible, but there's a reason they made their own instead of buying a shipping container and modifying it.

Dumpsters are probably about as good as shipping containers on their own, but because they probably don't have corrugations and are baseline much more watertight, they will be far easier to reinforce and seal for a marine environment.

Also ambient temperatures are for shitlords. If you don't have a submarine at 1 atm docked to your hab then you're not living the life.

>>1225758
That thing looks re-enforced to all hell. If you welded that much steel bracing to a shipping container it would probably work too.

>>1225760
I love these type of threads, even though the OP is always hopelessly ill-equipped to follow through and has no concept of the difficulty of what they're proposing, I always end up learning something new.

>>1225764
Seconded.

>>1225761

Scott Cassel's newest submersible, the Great White, will be able to surface inside of the same oversize moon pool the habitat will use to deploy and recover divers. At least that was the plan the last time I saw him interviewed about it. This will make it only the second habitat to have that capability since Conshelf 2. The only habitat that was 1atm and capable of docking to a submersible was Hydrolab.

There are good reasons 99% of habitats were ambient, or at least operable in ambient mode. The only justifiable reason for their existence was to facilitate long term saturation diving in a single location for decades.

This allows bottom time limited only by physical endurance. Aquarius even has air lines running out to tank refill stations out in the water so you don't need to return to Aquarius to refill, only to eat, sleep and shit.

>>1225762

Alright, fair. I would still like to see it tried with a shipping contained for giggles though. Part of me thinks it would just about hold, if inflatable vinyl domes do alright.

>>1225764

This is why I am more of a sea nerd now than a space nerd. Even if you somehow don't give a shit about ocean life, building for that environment is an engineering problem of unparalleled difficulty, which makes it real fuckin interesting

>>1225767
>This is why I am more of a sea nerd now than a space nerd. Even if you somehow don't give a shit about ocean life, building for that environment is an engineering problem of unparalleled difficulty, which makes it real fuckin interesting

I suspect a good percentage of /diy/ traffic is bored engineering students. Maybe even as high as 5%. I'd be interested to see a survey, even though the results would be highly questionable.

Undersea settlements have been a passion of mine since I was drawing naive and impractical designs for them in elementary school.

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>>1225775
>Undersea settlements have been a passion of mine since I was drawing naive and impractical designs for them in elementary school.

Same. Learning the economic reasons why none had been built was heart breaking. Since then I have devoted myself to finding ways to reduce the cost and to identify viable business models which require or could benefit from undersea habitats.

The Chinese government is already pursuing one, using a stationary neutrally buoyant habitat as a living and working space for the crew which operates robots up to 4 miles below via long fiber optic tethers.

Putting the habitat underwater, just below storm influence allows them to perform deep sea mining in the stormy, violent South China sea. The initial 12 man prototype will later be expanded to house 33, powered by a naval nuclear reactor and built in existing shipyards.

Western deep sea mining companies plan to house their robot pilots on boats, but there's only so much of the ocean where it's possible to do that safely. I expect the first high profile disaster will lead them to copy China's approach.

There's tourism obviously but that's already covered by Ithaa, Subsix, Water, Jules, Lime spa, etc.

The untapped market is mariculture. Existing offshore mariculture is maintained and harvested by teams of divers working out of speedboats from the shore.

But as these operations expand, that won't cut it, and the dive extending benefits of a seafloor habitat will begin to make economic sense.

There is still no workable economic rationale for a full blown colony, but we'll be seeing more utility habitats for these applications in the near future.

>>1225778
I'm interested in what extreme long term exposure to pressure would do to people, like, if we had multiple generations born and raised in Undersea habitats, would they be so adapted to the pressure that they couldn't survive easily on the surface? It would be like being on top of a mountain in the thin air is for us.

What would the psychological effects be? Going to the surface for them would involve potentially multiple days of decompression and once they got there they would experience things like wind completely unlike the subtle air currents in the hab, sunlight so bright and UV rich it could burn retinas and blister skin, a sky which stretched up to infinity, and a visibility so great they could see all the way to the horizon in every direction far beyond what even the clearest water would allow. Would they feel odd, even knowing it was illogical at the fact that they were restricted to one horizontal plane, unable to swim up into the sky?

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>>1225788

desu I'm a little bit gay for you now

Let's start the oceanic equivalent of SpaceX, use these models to build up wealth >>1225778

and then fund civilian undersea colonies out of pocket, sustaining them on the continuing revenue from those businesses

>>1225767
You can't go deep with an ambient hab, end of story. If you're living 10 feet under, good for you. But when it comes to the thrill of uncharted depths, off-the-sonar settlements, and submarine piracy, you have to go for a solid, pressure containing hull. I need settlements feeding off hydrothermal vents or methane hydrate. I need an armada of submarine classes, some capable of launching satellites to LEO, others that can dive deeper than 10,000 ft, some faster than 50 knots, and some capable of carrying smaller submarines. Marina, aqua-marina...

>>1225792
If I wasn't a depressed engineering school drop out burning away the best years of my life working night shifts at the hospital as a CNA because I stalled out halfway in nursing school I would totally be on board with that.

As it is I'll probably just write the first couple chapters of a cool novel with that concept, get frustrated and put it on hold indefinitely just like everything else in my life. I don't even have the confidence to give up on anything, I just say "I'll work on it later" and then end up doing the barest minimum required for me to live.

If I saw that any of my patients were living like I do I would be horrified and get them psychological help before they slowly killed themselves through neglect.

I have an incurable disease that I treat with medications that I need to lie to multiple doctors to get a steady supply of since they're only supposed to be taken short term and will probably kill me by the time I'm fifty; and that's if I only take barely enough to reduce the symptoms to a tolerable level. I'm dependant on ADHD medication that I probably never needed just to get out of bed. I get so little sunlight working nights that I need to take vitamin D supplements. My condition makes exercise intolerable and if steroids weren't part of my medications I would be completely deconditioned. I spend the only part of my day that I feel almost normal at work and the rest of my time laying in bed or sitting in my chair trying to build up the willpower to get up and cook something so that I don't go further into debt ordering food delivered.

I got a serious infection and spent a week in hospital last year. It was the best week I've had in years.

>>1225813
Ok, who wants to make away with K27?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sunken_nuclear_submarines

>>1225503
>>1225510
>>1225511
>>1225512
>>1225515
>>1225641
>>1225645
Why are the insides of all these cylindrical? Yeah, I get it, it has to withstand the pressure, but they could make the tube bigger, and then make a rectangular habitat inside that, so that the curved walls wouldn't make you go insane.

>>1225821
When each extra cubic inch of space costs more than the previous one you live with the walls being cylindrical for the extra headroom it provides.

>>1225813
If we’re looking at the problem from a hard sci-fi sort of angle, the way to put people on the bottom of the ocean is to look at modifying the way the body works more directly.

First off we’re going to need to fill every pocket of air in the body with some type of fluid. Both the inner and outer ear canal we can fill with sterile saline. Sinuses we can either fill with the same fluid we’re using in the lungs, or we can modify the sinuses so they no longer connect to the trachea (we’re not going to be breathing anyway).

I see two plausible for how we’re going to get oxygen into the blood, both of which are currently non-viable.

The first is to use a oxygen rich fluid like the one seen in the movie ‘Abyss’. As any true aqua-nerd will know, this fluid is real. Unfortunately it doesn’t work for anything much larger than a rat. The respiratory effort required for a human to move enough fluid to survive in and out for their lungs is not physiologically possible. Mechanical assistance could force enough fluid in and out of the lungs (darth vader style breathing), but it would likely be traumatic and not long term viable. My conceptual solution to this would be the insertion of a branching network of tubular membranes into the fluid inside the lungs, through which oxygen rich fluid would be passed to re-oxygenate the breathing fluid and remove CO2, similar to the exchange an ExtraCorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) machine performs on blood.

>>1225858
My second idea is an iteration on the ECMO idea. A membrane oxygenator would be grafted to the pulmonary artery and oxygen rich fluid would be pumped in and out of the device via external ports. In this iteration the lungs would not be required to function. It’s my hope that I can use the body’s own blood pressure to operate the device, since mechanical pumping devices tend to damage the blood cells, although this may not be possible if the flow restriction posed by the membrane tubes in the blood vessel is too great. Possibly a more powerful artificial heart could be implanted, along with reinforced Dacron blood vessels in the modified pulmonary circuit.

Digestion is an issue which I haven’t given as much thought. The production of gases during digestion is normal, and a highly compressed environment will affect that in unexpected ways. (anyone want to weigh in? I’m sure aquanauts have experienced this I just haven’t read about it.)

Rather than exposing the eyes directly to seawater they should be immersed in a fluid which will prevent irritation. Novel lensing solutions may be required to allow them to focus through liquid.

>>1225702
>diving bells
Oh hey, that reminds me of this fun little anecdote I once read.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin#Diving_bell_accident
Specifically this line:
"bisection of the thoracoabdominal cavity which further resulted in expulsion of all internal organs of the chest and abdomen except the trachea and a section of small intestine and of the thoracic spine and projecting them some distance, one section later being found 10 metres (30 ft) vertically above the exterior pressure door"

I'll be sticking to the surface, friends. Have fun with your explosive decompression incidents though.

>>1225886
Does seeing a grizzly car wreck stop you from driving?

>>1225898
I wouldn't drive either if I could avoid it.
All I'm saying is I'm thankful my current work commute doesn't involve delta P, friend.

>>1225903
Depends... What altitude do you work at? ;-P

>>1225906
That's not what delta p means.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEtbFm_CjE0

Feel free to be silly string if you want. Anon here >>1225903 and me will stay intact.

>>1224113
What is a snorkel?

>>1225943
If you're suggesting that a snorkel be used to collect air for compression, it's the tube that exhaust fumes accidentally get sucked into in this hypothetical.

The difficulty of a /diy/ system is that no mater where you place the snorkel it has the potential to be downwind of the generators. A proper system requires filtration and sensors. The physical solution is to put tall exhaust pipes on the generators to get the exhaust above the level of the intake, but even this is not guaranteed.

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>>1225814

Sounds like you need to try some acid or mushrooms. I did, now I have 67 novellas and short stories, as well as 7 published books.

This is in spite of moving cross country to a state I hated to be with a girl who dumped me when I arrived, then being doxxed and being unable to find traditional work because of it. That's actually why I went into writing.

There is no amount of therapy or pharmaceuticals that will do nearly as much to unfuck your brain and put you emotionally back on the right track as about 5g of mushrooms or some good old liquid lucy.

They don't do it all by themselves of course, you need to do some soul searching during the trip for the substance to work its magic, but my story is hardly unique.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/magic-mushroom-drug-lifts-depression-in-human-trial1/
http://metro.co.uk/2017/03/01/magic-mushrooms-do-in-30-seconds-what-antidepressants-take-four-weeks-to-do-6482051/
http://www.webmd.com/depression/news/20160517/scientists-test-magic-mushroom-chemical-for-tough-to-treat-depression#1
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3581595/

Maybe don't jump right into the deep end with 5g of shrooms first thing, though. Ease in with small, then increasing doses of acid to familiarize yourself with the headspace. You may also want a buddy present for large doses to talk you through difficult ideation.

Those cautionary bits aside though, it did absolute wonders for me. I shredded all of my suffering and burnt it as fuel for my journey, and am now making good money and actually loving being alive.

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>>1226051
this anon speaks truth

>>1225859
Sony were experimenting with generating power from sugar, meaning you could cut out a person's lungs and heart and replace them with a fairly large device that pulls oxygen out of the water all off blood sugar.

https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/200708/07-074E/index.html

But if we're talking real sci-fi, bio-modding humans to do that will be far more efficient, and it might even be closer to reality.

Where would you buy land for this?

Carve out a large pineapple, my daughter watches a documentary on some guy who lives in one under the sea.

>>1226094

Bribe the ISBA I guess. There are burdensomely severe environmental regulations on building anything underwater, especially in the open ocean.

Those guys who built the underwater dome in Lake Tahoe only got away with it because they did it secretly.

>>1226106
>ISBA
Google provides no insight.

>>1226118

International Sea Bed Authority.

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How come there's no research habitats in underwater cave systems? Think how much more exploration could be done if divers weren't subject to the normal scuba diving time limit.

Plus it would be easier in a cave. You don't need weights to hold the structure down, you can just let buoyancy pin it against the cavern ceiling. It would have adjustable legs like Aquarius, but above it instead of beneath it.

>>1226125
Why not just seal it off entirely and fill it with pressurized air?

>>1226128

I don't think you grasp the sheer size of some of these cave networks

>>1226125
WANT

>>1226131
All that means is the pumps run longer, not harder. (pumping air)

>>1226125
Also some of the research is aimed at the things living in them.


A better solution would be to just to have an air bitch (or two) carrying spare tanks and rebreather, or just use snuba.

>>1226174

That still only lets you capture a snapshot of the cave ecosystem at that moment in time. A habitat would let you capture ongoing data to document how the cave ecosystem changes.

>>1226179
>>1226174
Oh, we're talking about studying the caves.
I was just thinking about living space.
Going underground underwater seems like it solves quite a few problems, though I haven't really thought it through very far yet.

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>>1226182

That was the plan for the Navy's "Rock Site Concept" in the 1960s. A secret support base for nuclear subs burrowed into an undersea mountain.

It would stockpile munitions and grow food to resupply nuclear subs with so that in the event of a nuclear war between the US and the Soviets which devastated the mainland US, it would be possible to continue waging naval war (and to retaliate with sub launched nukes) for as long as the sub reactors lasted.

These days the most modern naval reactors for subs have a lifespan of 50 years, the full life of the sub. The only endurance bottleneck is the food supply. This is why deployments last 3 months, that's how long before the food runs out.

Imagine being the last living Americans, in the Rock Site base waging nuclear, naval war on the Russians for multiple decades after the US has been destroyed. Maybe spending the rest of your natural life without ever again glimpsing the sun.

>>1226183
Got a new setting for my space marine game. Thank you.

>>1226051
I realize this is off-topic, but what sort of stuff do you write, anon?

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>>1226198

Horror and science fiction. Free stuff here: https://www.inkitt.com/alexbeyman

Published stuff here: https://www.amazon.com/Alex-Beyman/e/B01N4LHI3C

>>1226202
Alex, you should do an AMA on reddit, haven't even read your books yet and I'm already curious to ask more about your success

>>1226241

I don't wanna derail the thread, and generally don't like having a spotlight on me. This thread is about rad underwater forts.

>>1226241
>you should do an AMA on reddit
Anon, you should fucking kill yourself, haven't even read your whole post yet and I'm not at all curious as to why you think you should be here

>>1226246
it's called sarcasm, retard. if you read the whole thing it might have occurred to you I'm shitting on this guy for plugging his books on /b/

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>>1226251
it doesn't read sarcastically at all
stuff like that is the exact reason normalfags ever came to think that they're allowed here
furthermore, this is /diy/
>>>/b/

>>1226251

You asked me to though.

>>1226183
But anon, conventional terrestrial warfare would resume within 6 months.
All that would happen is strategic targets would be rubble. There are still dozens of millions of americans and hundred of millions acres of arable and habitable land.

>tl;dr
fallout is a meme that solves itself fairly quickly.
it is a waste of a nuke to hit anything other than a population, military, or production center.
reindustrialization shouldn't take more than 1-5 years.
Most americans will want revenge and accept marginally increased cancer risk if it means the enemy dies by the fruits of their labor or by their hands.


>tl;dr tl;dr
That concept is brilliant and I am outraged that we don't have them.

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>>1226276
>and I am outraged that we don't have them
>implying we don't

For anyone who's interested in this topic and hasn't seen it get I recommend the making of documentary for 'The Abyss' it's an amazing story for anyone who hasn't seen it. Unlike pretty much every other movie ever, the underwater scenes are filmed almost entirely underwater with real dive gear. The actors were required to learn how to SCUBA, and every camera operator, lighting tech and even Cameron himself needed to operate their own gear. Not only that but they had two safety divers for every other diver in the water. It was an unbelievable logistical undertaking for a film.

>>1226591
I've seen it but had no idea the enormity of the project. I'm going to check it out

>>1226614
The rat scene was real, believe it or not. Cameron managed to source some of the experimental fluid and replicate the rat experiment the scientists had been conducting.

Due to this scene, PETA refused to give the film its blessing and hence it lacks the 'No animals were harmed in the making of this film' message in the credits.

Despite this, the rat was not injured and lived happily for the rest of its natural life.

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It's such a fucking disgrace and disappointment that all those grandiose dreams about future undersea settlements never came true.

It's 2017. We have no colony on Mars. We have a tiny bus sized underwater lab. We have the ISS. That's fucking all though.

We should at least have one real 15,000 person undersea colony, a colony on Mars and a base on the Moon by now.

>>1227482
A martian/lunar colony would be a million times more feasible (not to mention safe) for us today still than an undersea one.

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>>1227484

In the history of undersea habitats, nobody has ever drowned in one. The safety and feasibility depends a lot on depth, and there are different uses for such a structure that call for different depths.

Aquarius is at just 63 feet because it's for studying coral reefs. A similar habitat near the edge of the continental shelf could be used to support a deep diving submersible like Alvin.

It could then be sent down to the abyssal plain every day instead of once every couple years, since the logistical costs and difficulties of transporting it from shore to the dive site and deploying/recovering it by crane would have been eliminated.

The support habitat doesn't need to be very deep for this, just below the reach of storm influence.

>>1227488
In the history of martian habitats, nobody has ever died in one.

>>1227482
>15,000 person undersea colony
Why?

>a base on the Moon by now.
Why?

>a colony on Mars
See:
>>>/tg/54826751
>>>/tg/54837848

>>1227497

Because it's cool.

>>1227504
>Because it's cool.
That is only valid for underwater bases. There are equally cool space options that are actually viable.

Use a shipping container.

>>1225886
Your argument is literally that "ewww, they died in a gross way". Their deaths weren't even painful, they blew up in a fraction of a second. Next time bring up some statistics or something.

>>1228113
Diving is statistically quite safe; not because it isn't dangerous, but because people know it's dangerous are very careful about it, much like skydiving.

>>1228113
>Your argument
What argument?

>>1228350
The argument that diving bells are shit because of one accident. Maybe it's technically not an argument, but it was phrased in an argumentative way.

>>1228351
Nobody made that argument. Sorry your feelings were hurt, anon. Are you or any close relatives divers maybe?
Hope you don't get extruded through a porthole or something

>>1228352
>make post shitting on thing X, bring up example Y for it being shit
>"I didn't say that X is shit because of Y, I'm not here to argue"

>>1228355
>Tilting at windmills

>>1227649

Viable in what sense? There is nothing that can be done at a profit in space which requires a human presence.

>>1228872
>Viable in what sense?
Able to constructed in real life without most of the resources being wasted in comparison to other projects that are either more functional are almost equally functional.

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>>1228895

Underwater bases are able to be constructed in real life and aren't a waste. The Chinese government is working on a nuclear powered underwater mining station right now. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/aekk54/china-wants-to-build-a-deep-sea-space-station

That's because deep sea mining can be done at a profit. Asteroid mining cannot.

>>1228901
Asteroid mining is only viable if the mined resources are used for construction in space. The cost to launch the materials into space works out to more than the projected cost of mining them in space.

You don't want to use asteroid mined iron on earth unless you fancy paying $2000/kg.

>>1228908

Yes, I know. That's the basis of my argument.

>>1228911
The only way to use space-mined materials planetside is to colony drop the fucking thing. Ergo, completely useless to us right now.

Unless we wanna start making bases on Mars. Then we can do it at no consequence.

>>1228919

Yes I know. Thanks for continuing to tell me the basis of my argument for why deep sea mining is viable and space mining is not, hence why underwater bases have economically valid uses that space habitats currently don't.

>>1228923
I'm not him, I just wanted to make the comment because the idea of bombarding Mars with resources along with the fact it's a legitimate development strategy always amuses me.

>>1228926

Mars is a shithole. Anything we drop on it can only be an improvement. People who worry we'll "ruin it" are retards. It's a radiation blasted, airless red desert. It's already ruined.

I imagine it's still more economical to mine ore from Mars itself though.

Anyways that's off topic. Deep sea mining is happening for real and China is building Sea Rab 2021 to do it. If you don't think that's the tightest shit, get out of my face

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>profiteering is the only reason anything happens

>>1228931

Society is a vast organism in which currency is the blood. There is no other viable means of reliably motivating development in a way which appropriately rewards those who most indispensibly contributed.

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>>1228930
It'll be more economical to mine locally once the infrastructure to refine it is built, but the relatively pure materials present in asteroid deposits makes dropping nearly useable materials right where you need them is a very attractive proposal for initial development as well as for your large volume iron needs.

>Deep sea mining is happening for real and China is building Sea Rab 2021 to do it. If you don't think that's the tightest shit, get out of my face
I'm hype as fuck.

Also here, take this.

>>1223777
False. Do more googling.

http://www.undercurrent.org/UCnow/dive_magazine/1998/ShallowWaterBends199810.html

>>1228930
They're chinks. They'll manage to turn gold into pig iron, it's what they do.
I wouldn't doubt that they stole they schematics for the entire project from a sci-fi novel from the 1950's.

>>1225192
>pests can't get to the underwater domes, so no pesticides is needed

well holyfucking shit, isn't this more cost effective then spamming pesticides in the long run?

>>1228968
anodes cost money anon.

>>1228968

The habitats are expensive. It only works out to be economical in arid regions where the energy cost of cooling conventional greenhouses would be burdensomely expensive.

Arid country + access to the ocean + wealthy customers who don't mind pricier fruits and veg = Dubai and UAE

>>1226125
They actually did use a habitat during the Wakulla springs project. It made decompression a lot more comfortable and they designed it so they could vary the depth on a pullet system for deco.
They were still pretty limited, but between mixed gasses, rebreathers, and the diving bell, they did some incredible exploration.

>>1229068

Imagine what could be done with a series of permanent deco habitats at the appropriate depth intervals, further and further into the caves.

>>1228919
>colony drop
pls no

Mining asteroids in space and pulling their resources into LEO would be cost effective if you could mine fuel for the mining vessels while you mine ore, which is probably quite possible. Deorbiting those to the surface would be pretty easy in comparison to getting those resources back up again, all you need is a heat shield and a parachute. But I think we've got all the iron and other raw materials we'll ever need on Earth, so the real reason you'd be mining asteroids would be for the construction of things in space in the first place. Bonus points for constructing them in Mars orbit due to it requiring less delta-v than getting to Earth from the asteroid field, but chances are the minerals would be refined on-site, because hauling 200 tonnes of ore-containing rock is not a good way to spend your energy when you could simply refine them into metal projectiles and shoot them into a transfer orbit with a mass relay. But at that point, you might as well be building the spacecraft, space stations, and whatever else at the mining facility, provided the mined metals will be the majority of the mass of materials required, not stuff that needs to come from Earth. Of course this infrastructure will take time to establish, but once it's there it could become quite efficient.

In comparison, getting materials to the bottom of the ocean is stupidly easy, provided they aren't styrofoam. Getting them back up again is also fairly trivial. But building on the sea bed is much tougher, because of the massive pressure differential. Mining on the seabed would also prove fairly difficult, possibly enough to doubt whether there's a profit to be made. As it stands, there's enough iron being recycled in the USA to make running an iron mining operation meaningless, and I suspect the same thing will eventually happen with other materials, provided we speak of terra firma as a closed system.

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>>1229124

They're selectively mining precious and rare earth metals. By grinding up thermal vents where those metals accumulate from the exhaust, hence why environmentalists are up in arms about it.

>>1229124
I meant for use on Mars, not Earth.
Also a single asteroid can contain more iron than has ever been refined in the history of mankind. When you think about just the warships alone that would entail, let alone the billions of tons of other shit we've made, that's a lot of fucking iron.

>>1222740
Anon What?... Y deserve it