Hmmm, everyone must have already turned in for
the night. Anyways, I have been loosely keeping up with what's been
going on with the Mars Society's Devon Island research station in the high
artic. For those of you who don't know, they are conducting research in
a simulated habitat to gather information of what it would be like to live on
Mars. What does this have to do with home built
subs? Creating, maintaining and living in artificial
environments and atmospheres, sort of go hand and hand with subs but even
further with underwater habitats. I know there has been a little
discussion on habitats but from what I've seen, It's just been
stating that they are enormously expensive subs that don't go
anywhere.
With that said, I jump into my next
question. Why isn't more effort by governments or whomever,
spent researching the possibilities of mans existence in the sea.
Is it considered that Cousteau proved and discovered everything there was
to prove and discover with the Conshelf project? Sort of a "been there,
done that" attitude. It would seem more logical that if "we"
were to set off colonizing something other than earth, that the next step
would be the sea and not some distant planet. Is there a
possibility that something, equivalent to the Mars Society, could
be assembled, focusing on under sea efforts? The only habitat that
I know of is the Aquarius, which is a small ambient pressure, scientific
habitat. It operates ten day saturation missions in the Florida Keys. I
know these are grossly expensive projects but if you look at The Mars
Society's list of sponsors, it seems that they have found some grossly deep
pockets as well. Speaking of sponsors, check out Pioneer
Astronautics www.pioneerastro.com . They are
the company dealing with some of the environmental concerns of the Mars
habitat. Their "Nitrous Oxide Based Oxygen Supply System" seems like it
could have a very practical application in a submarine, diving suit or
habitat.
Well, I can see it now. We'd all be
cruising to the store in double "deep workers", going out to the under
sea park in an "Exo Suit" and commuting to work in a "K-boat". Maybe on
weekends we could all meet at the under sea "Sonic" to show of our latest
custom subs, with Pat reigning supreme with the "Nautilus". Oh yea, and
Phil could be the Henry Ford of the sea!
I'm out,it's late,
Ty