Has anyone seen any efforts to setup an underwater society? I would think that such a thing would be perfect for NASA to go into before it attempts to send a manned mission to Mars. I mean, couldn't someone buy up a piece of land close to the ocean and begin constructing a set of modular pressure domes (with full redundancy, escape systems, and such). Such an effort would initially have applications for underwater research, systems modularization, self-contained systems management, and engineering improvements. Later, such a system could become an underwater society that could grow into new locations as the technologies improve. Isn't it about time that such a thing was investigated? Wouldn't this be safer, cheaper, and have potentially greater benefits than a trip to Mars? Wouldn't this pave the way for a trip to Mars that everyone would view as a safe trip?

I smell a new reality tv show! Survivor-The Marianas Trench

It sounds like a good idea if we ever need astronauts in mass. Most of the technology needed in underwater habitats for the shallows, so to say, is already developed. It's just there is no need for such an expensive undertaking. If we run out of land mass then maybe that is the solution. But I think that before we'd do that it would be easier to just build up or dig in. You already see examples of that were land is at a premium. Such as in New York City. Sky scrapers and underground transit come readily to mind. A lot of effort was put in to doing these things. And at great cost. But nowhere near the cost of an underwater habitat.

But it would probably be cheaper than the one of a kind effort that will be necessary to get to Mars (and beyond). The plusses I could see are:

* modularized, reuseable development techniques
* development of energy efficiency tools
* safety system development for harsh environments
* living off the land (ocean farming)
* new medical advances from ocean flora and fauna
* and, later, storage and living rental

Initial development might be expensive, but it could have potentially big dividends as new technologies came about. Perhaps a multi-national group of corporations would fund it to kick it off and recoup costs over the long-term? If its very modular in its design, perhaps it would start with a few (dozen?) modules and then expand as the modules show a return on investment?

Listen to wet1, BatM. He's giving you straight scoop.

Sure it might be cheaper than going to Mars, but so would going to the Moon and setting up a colony.

I don't think you realize what a hostile environment it is underwater, particularly salt water. I think it was Woods Hole that set up, I believe, a five man habitat and had to dump it after about three years due to the expense involved in supporting only those few researchers - everything had to be supplied from the surface: air, food and energy. And, don't forget the buoyancy problem - how do you keep anything of any size down on the bottom?

I agree that there is lots of problems with living under the water. I am mostly just trying to stir up interest in the idea to see if anyone might come up with ideas on making it a reality (after all, there is nothing that says this forum couldn't work on a problem that will never be actually put into practice). Its easy to shoot the idea down, but could you propose ideas that might make it work?

I hadn't heard about the Woods Hole experiment. How long ago was the experiment? Where exactly was it done? What did the experiment determine? Could newer technology have made a difference?

Example: if salt water rusts the steel of the enclosure, perhaps a plastic composite could be mixed into the steel in some fashion?

Sorry BatM, it wasn't Wood's Hole. That was another research project. The one I was thinking of is the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary laboratory operated by NOAA and the University of North Carolina and is still in operation. You can check it out at:

http://www.uncwil.edu/nurc/aquarius/index.htm

Take care.

Some of the problems that you encounter are that sea water is extremely corrosive due to salt and depending upon location bateria. I have seen bacteria eat a piece of stainless steel into swiss cheese in about two years. Regular steel will not last very long without protective coatings. The best so far for cost is to coat it in cement. But the cement is very vunerable to shock. It may not breakup and fall off but it can remain and come loose from its binding. This leaves a hard to detect pocket between the steel and the cement. Under pressure the salt water will eventually get in and start to work on the steel. Another problem is electrolysis. The moving current will set up an electrical sponge, so to say, that will take negetive ions from the steel, causing corrosion pits in the steel. I have seen underwater videos of large pocks in the steel caused by teh transfer. Normally you insulate the metal from gound and run electrical current through it. This protects the steel by allowing the electricity to give off the ions instead of the steel.
To do something like this is unbelievably expensive. Everything has to be brought in from outside. Without a paying business that generates money given enough time even millionaires will go broke. and we are not talking about the necessary facilities for people to live in. The deep sea is a real hostile enviroment. With cold temperatures that will cause hypothermia rather quickly.

Hmmm. How have the battleships and aircraft carriers and submarines avoided the problems you describe for salt water (some of them are ~50 years old)? Do they regularly dry-dock these super ships so they can repair and replace the hull plates? Or is it that they don't go deep enough for long enough for it to be a problem?

Ever see a boat or ship that wasn't painted regulary?

All the way down to the keel?!? That would imply that they do regularly dry-dock the battleships (etc.) to repaint them.

Hmmm. I don't suppose its possible to paint a structure while its underwater? Just musing...

If you figure out how to paint underwater, the oil companies will pay you a mint for the process. They have all kinds of platforms in the ocean. At present they use an epoxy coating which is then covered by cement. And it's not cheap! Now, I have never been in the navy so there may be something like a rectifier used to protect the ships' hull. I don't know about that. But I do see boats and ships all the time that need painting in the worst way. They don't call them rust buckets for nothing

And there's something else that hasn't been touched on BatM: marine life! Not only do you have corrosion and electrolysis, you also have marine life to contend with.

Even wood and fiberglass hulled boats need to be hauled out and the underwater portions of the hull repainted with 'anti-fouling' paint ever year or so to protect them from marine life attaching itself and doing damage (ex. worms, marine plant life and barnacles).

Again, in many ways the undersea environment is far more difficult to deal with than space.

I started this thread because I've heard the statement "we know more about space than we do about the depths of the ocean on our own planet" so many times (Discovery channel and the like) that I finally decided to ask the question "why?" Also, the population curve for the planet seems to be taking an alarming direction, so I think we're going to need new ways to spread out (as well as control) that population. Combining the two issues seemed to be a relatively obvious idea (at least to me). If you assume a pre-existing colony in space or in the sea, its seems to me far easier for people to migrate to the one in the sea. As this thread shows, though, the assumption may be easier to create for space than sea.

For a long time we have been aware that the population explosion will produce a problem. It's another one of those things that have had several generations of work on it all ready. If it helps there are several tends that are promising but there is no banana at the end.



During the war years there is almost always a population explosion. Mostly having to do with guy going to war and girlfriend/wife has itch to ensure survival of the name or most guys gone to war and not as many around the home front.

Witness the so-call baby boomers generation. They are near retirement age and there are not as many to support the taxes required to give the retirees the strip end that they paid all their life to receive. Furthermore, businesses will have to find a way to survive with fewer people. There are not enough workers for the amount needed. Perhaps emigration will solve this problem but that is still in the future.

The world leading countries show a decline in the birth rates compared to third world countries. The world leaders have been pushing the ZPG (Zero Population Growth) for a long time.

Part of the problem with the third world countries is very similar to the USA of old. We have come from out of an agriculture type society to industrial to information and data driven society. In the agriculture society babies are a boon. More to spread the work amongst after they have grown. And there is a lot of work on a farm! In industrial society fewer workers are needed to grow food and they produce more per worker per acre. In the information and data society, well, look around. How often so you hear that we are running out of farmland and that the family farm is almost a thing of the past.

In my estimation, human population growth is the root of all other major problems now facing the world. I know that, in the time I've been alive, the population has doubled (maybe even tripled) and that, if that trend keeps up over just the next fifty years, the world could become a very difficult place to live (imagine a world of 12+ billion people). In the past, the main solution to lack of space due to population growth has been to move elsewhere. The resources of the world, however, are already strained such that moving to some other obvious location may not be an option anymore (or it won't solve any of the problems being experienced). That leaves more unusual locations to look to like the deep seas and outer space. Expansion into space will allow the growth of humans (as well as its population) to continue unchecked for the forseeable future. Expansion into the seas may ultimately teach us, though, more about living within our means. I'd much rather start the search for real solutions rather than hope that the trends will save us by themselves.

You are probably more right than you realize. Most of the stuff has already been worked out for mining asteroids, for getting fuel, even for habitats in space. It won't teach us to be more frugal with energy for the taking and space to grow ever which way. Or for a lot of the resources that we take for granted all the easier to get. It would solve our imeadiate needs for most things including the pressure relief for the population.

Several years ago, when I was doing some work in Asia, there was heavy interest creating underwater colonies off Japan. The problem is the material to be used. There is a renewed interest due to the advances in metallugy specially buckeyball technology.

If we find the right technology, that will be great. Japanese will be the first one to expand in to the sea. Being the No.2 economy, they can afford it too.

But in real life it would be better to go to Mars. Though sufficently more expensive, with global warming, the threat of the ice caps melting, or an asteroid ending humanity, I think the ultimate purpose of a colony, especially on another planet would be ideal for allowing human kind to flourish after a grave ecological distaster.

If there wasn't the chance of mankind ending existance on this planet, than I would be against all colonization in other enviroments. There is TONS of space on mother Earth for people to live, though not all of it might be ocean front property in the middle latitudes where it only peaks at 85 degrees in the afternoon. As the demand for more space increases people will move to different places on Earth, with Cali becoming overcrowded, an ideal place to live would be Arizona. Texas, and Florida are already heavily populated and will rise in growth because of Hispanic immigrants. People may consider moving to Louisiana, Alabama, Missouri. The general movement in the US is west and south, just as it has been since the pilgrims landed. Warmer weather, and abundant new housing makes it perfect to start a family in.

I think it would be intresting to see an undersea colony, but we don't need them as much as we may need a perminate colony on Mars, or a beginners one on the Moon.

It is really dangerous to set up colonies in Mars or Moon because the atmosphere does not protect small meteor strikes. If we can terraform Mars, then we can have atmosphere to protect us including a strong magnetic field to protect from solar radiation.

We can design a habitat drilling in to a large mountain or on the sea floor close to a continental self that will draw energy from earth's core for a long long time.

What if there are Martina or Venusians underground that lost their technology and can not contact us....just a wicked thought....

I'd like to experience a slice of life either underwater, or on Mars. If Earth goes into another long ice age regardless of its starting point, than the oceans could be come too cold to inhabit, even at a very low depth. For all we know a asteroid strike could tilt Earth's axis so that it becomes a big snow ball. No matter what happens on Earth, a Martian colony wouldn't be affected, assuming that they are self-dependent.

We should reach out to Mars, and begin to terraform it because I believe it is humanity's destiny to slip the bonds of Earth and expand into the rest of our solar system, and eventually galaxy. This will hinge itself on weather or not there is a monetary gain that can be taken from the planet itself. For more on Martian colonization, you can look under the Astronomy thread that is titled Mars. It may be in the archives.

Dilution of the population of earth into the space environment and into other worlds should be a long term goal. One as was mentioned is that we are vulnerable, as a species, within this one ecosystem. If it dies, for whatever reason, so do we. There are a few scenarios that would drive such to happen.



The asteroid impact scenario.
It is not likely at the present stage of our development that we would discover an on course asteroid more than a few weeks at best. Several in past years have managed to come within days of near impact before discovery.

The polluted environment scenario.
That earth becomes so polluted as to not be able to support life with any real meaning to quality of life or quantity. This is within our means to control at present. That does not mean it will always be so.

The nuclear winter scenario.
War on it’s most dreaded scale. Total devestation of our way of life. Prehaps we would survive on some small scale afterwards, who is to say? But the effects would be around far longer than we as a species have any right to expect to exist if past history has any relevance.

The superbug.
One of the great fears I have is that some military research project escapes. To put it into the words of one Rush Limbough(?) “The military exists for two purposes, to break things and kill people”. A tailored germ/virus to eliminate the human species. Ideally it would effect only the enemy. But in the design/tailoring stage it is likely the bug would have an affinity for all peoples. And there is always an enemy that could have your tailor made bug.



This could be broken on down to multitudes of subcatorgies but I’m sure you get the gist.

In the superbug scenario, it works like this:

Your side do not want to create a superbug for ethical reasons. But you reason that this may not prevent the other side to do the same thing like a targeted virus for certain ethnic groups. Now since the otherside is evil (they always are), you have to protect yourself. You need antidotes. But how can you have antidotes if you do not have the virus?

So you design the virus thinking like the evil group. Now while at it, you are told to design the virus targeting the enemy too - just in case (clandestine ofcourse).

So there you have it. You can fill in the gap....

Only too well, I'm afraid.

Any other speculations?

Nuclear winter: Nay, If we can work together dismantling the big bombs. The real threat is from terrorists (I have a separate thread under politics). But it will not be a massive attack. Just your New York City. That is why, it important to neutralize the threat. We are trying to go about it the wrong way.

Environment: No major catastrophe there - we have some checks and balances from the likes of Green Peace even though I may not agree with some of their methods.

Asteroid: Too close for comfort. It is a numbers game. When your time is up before you have the technology is there to stop it, who you are going to call?

The biggest threat of mass extinction is still biological including smart tomatoes (the atack of the killer tomatoes!)

Attack of the Killer tomatoes. Since I'm sure you don't mean the movie, prehaps a question is in order.

How would you go about such a thing? Ship the product to the local grocery store? Would you load such into the fruit/vegetable? What would the shelf life of such be before the "product" is unusable?

If I had it in for, say France, (the French have never done anything to me, but losing all that competion for the home girls might be an idea), would the preferable senerio be to load the water supply, food supply, some warehouse of material to be sold to the general public, or prehaps even a hospital? A hospital seems like a good place to start. After all the victum was sick and had a relapse.

And would my bug be genetic? With prehaps the possibility of transferring by touch? Air transmission?

While "the attack of the killer tomatoes" was said in jest, there is a lot of truth to this.

Some time ago, I posted may be in this forum about a nightmare I had several years back. Here it goes.

In the dream, I woke up on a saturday morning to find a large number of people on our front yard extending to the back of the street. There was a helicopter buzzing around. Next to our house, there was an empty field that I saw now occupied by a propeller plane (DC 10?). I saw a tall very handsome/beautiful group came out of the plane. To make a long story short, they told us that they are from the future year 30xx (I have written down somewhere) and travelled back in time to collect vegetation seeds. Why? Because over the years, scientists have manipulated genes to grow more food for the expanding population. They gave edible plants intelligence to protect themselves from insects. All was well until suddenly in a matter of a few years, the plants started producing toxins that started killing humans. Before we could find out what is happening, it spread like wildfire to the whole planet.

Unfortunately no one had the original genome and seeds to change it back. At the time other scientists were working on temporal physics with the help of AIs. They got the plane from the Smithonian (in case there is a temporal problem) to get every kind of seed.

What bothers me is that I dreamt it in 1978 when we did not have all these genetic technology! Go figure....

And about the superbug, we do not have the technology to create AIDs type bug. But once we have AIDs bug in hand, we may create more potent one. We really do not need to. The nile virus and others found in africa are real potent ones for which we do not have any cure. In reality we do not have any real cure for Viruses. We let the body activate its immune response.

We can easily modify these superbugs for intended target. But I think you should be working on a benign bug that eats the other super bugs.

Interesting, as always.

A super predator of super bugs. Which would have to be tailored to exacting standards. Most bugs, it would seem would be looking for some specific receptor site to lock on to. Sooo, the predator would have to be looking for those attachment keys/codes.

This brings to mind the Virus Attacks on computers which seems to be a cat and mouse game of catch up. The virus strikes, the antivirus is keyed to look for the identifing signature to neutralize the attack. So this brings the medical field to the same level. If you neutralize one, leaving the opponent without a strike ability, natuarlly they are going to modify/change the bug, which leads to the next round.

So do you expose your knowledge of the opponets' weapon and your research into it or do wait until use to prevent esclation ahead of time?

On the super bug issue:

A benign super bug which is friendly to the body but can recognize the bag bugs is the best scenario. Our human body has lots of bugs that feed from our body waste. The key is to engineer them such that they feel threatened by the superbug and hence territorial to kill the superbugs. It is easier than modifying our bodies microphages, T-cells etc and make them intelligent.

No, you do not expose your knowledge about your opponents weapon unless it serves some purpose. The reason is, say the otherside is spending all the money building a missile system and you find out by sending a special coded message, you can neutralize it, then let them build it as much as they can, let them spend all the money - in the mean time tell everyone that how potent that missile is and that you are so afraid of that missile system etc etc. You see my point....that is strategy.

While having wandered a good bit from the orginal topic of the thread it has been, shall we say, educational.

I wonder if this solar sail technology will assist in the traveling to Mars and the setup of a colony?

I also wonder if there is some new medicine awaiting our discovery in the ocean? I would think that if we did have a underwater habitat we might come closer to finding such. Spending more time in direct contact with the enviroment would allow more observation time. One of the keys to discovery.

Medicine from the sea could be a whole new topic. Yesterday, our 15 year old dog had to be hospitalized due to a benign melanoma in his ear. The vet took care of it. The dog is fine. Now the vet told us that she has been to India. She found people are making salves that cures skin cancer. I am going to track that medicine and see what it contains.

Life started in the sea. So there is all kinds of proteins and biochemicals that we could use to treat modern diseases.

Nobody remembers atronaut Scott Carpenter's participation in Sealab, a Navy sponsored habitat in the Bahamas? Sealab was operating back in the late 1960's. The project was expensive because of the surface support vessels which provided power hookups as well as oxygen. Astronauts don't have to do any sort of saturation to avoid the 'bends', but divers do. The physiology of diving is often more hazardous than space flight.

A better simulation for deep space flights are submarines, or remote terrestial locations such as antarctica. Data from these are what NASA uses to project living conditions for trips to Mars. Also don't forget MIR. Cosmonuats stayed in orbit longer than a round trip to Mars would take.

Good Post. Thank you Sader and welcome.

I echo kmguru's welcome. Here is a chair sit and be welcome.

I am somewhat familiar with divers and their needs. But let me make it clear that I am around it occasionally, not a diver. I have seen the equpitment needed to house the divers on a long term basis for underwater jobs. They live in that can for several weeks under the pressure that they will work under when not actually at work. It has a harzarous job with a short term future much like atheletes.

The Mars exploration simulation is running at present. Yesterday they were to set up to run geophones but the weather got in the way and hampered the transportation to and from their supposed site. (They never actually made it there)

Space is a lot more dangerous than the water. A paint fleck in earth's orbit travels at 18,000 mph. The single fleck hit the Space Shuttle's windshield and cracked the bullet resistant glass. There are thousands of items that are flying around, and if you got hit you'd be dead. Space has lots of radiation that currently we can only be in for a few hours without shielding of another planet. I still think its wiser to colonize another planet, i.e. Mars, because whatever happens on Earth, the Martian colony won't be affected. Underwater, or outer space will require an financial incentive or it won't be worth going to. I would like to see a colony on Mars first, and an underwater one second.

No one can argue that they both have their dangers. The paint fleck is valid for as far as it goes. Once outside the orbit of the earth then things thin down and there are not as many. This is not to say that there are not other hazards. And radiation being one of them. Sooner or later we will have to clean up the neighborhood. And this includes the nuts, bolts, ejecta material, and yes paint flecks. One such idea that has been sponsored by Australia after the Mir crash/splash down was the Orion.

The idea behind Orion was radar tracking and aiming device. The rest of it was a pulse laser (if I remember correctly) which would keep zapping objects until they were nudged into a degrading orbit or until they were destroyed. Don't ask me how long this would take. Depends on the size of the laser, the density of the target, and what its rotational speed might be amongst other things.

Now I am certainly an advocate for a colony. And I won't be choosy to start. It can be anywhere outside this gravity well. But it must be far enough away so that we have to venture to it and they need to be as self-sufficient as possible.

sader,

Re. Your comment:

Astronauts don't have to do any sort of saturation to avoid the 'bends', but divers do.
The following is exerpted from STS-104 Mission Status Report #11:
The crews closed the hatches between the two spacecraft at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday to begin lowering Atlantis’ cabin pressure to that same 10.2 pounds per square inch mark. This measure helps purge nitrogen bubbles from the space walkers’ bloodstreams, and is augmented by the space walkers pre-breathing pure oxygen.Just thought you'd like to know.

Re. The submarine analogy: That's why I decided to do subs; figured it was the closest I'd get to a spaceship. Glad I did it, quite the experience.

Ah, quite so. Thank you for the clarification. The Engineering is here, the technology is here, and the people willing to go are here. What is needed is the mandate from something to say "Do it".

It is called leadership. In this we are sadly lacking direction.

i also think it would be a learning experiance for us if we explored our own world befor colonising others.if anything went rong underwater at least we would have help(on the same planet).

What are you talking about? Did you loose your thread? You can reply to the thread so that the context is visible.

That no one has tied the idea of living underwater in with genetic modification.

Since the development of gill slits is a stage in fetal development, all that would be necessary is a genetic modification that would enable gills to develop as well a lungs - and we could truly live underwater!

Not my idea. Years ago there was a comic book whose hero was 'Super Mariner' I believe.

Good post! You're right, I am indeed surprised that no one else has mentioned it.

To use genetics for adapting to underwater would require not only gills but also something done for the skin. The skin secretes oils designed to protect it from our environment. Melanin is produced to protect us from the damage that the sun would normally inflict upon us. (Which incidentally gives the color to our skin) So what would be the result of someone staying underwater for long periods of time besides wrinkly skin and bleached white in appearance. Would the shut down of melanin producing hormones over the long haul affect our body in some other way?

Would the loss of skin oil require some other type of secretion to take place? What would be the effects of one so adapted to normal air, even at night? The temperatures that such people would have to deal with might require the addition of fat layers. Much the same as whales.

Guys, Guys, Guys.
This is what your looking for.
Construction starts soon.
Shaunessy

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3sr95/

Peace and we are looking for volunteers to go to Fiji.
Shaunessy

In my many searches for information and others who are trying to colonize underwater i stumbled across this forum.

For the past 10+ years I have been designing and working on an underwater habitat/resort/colony.

I believe it can be done. The only thing thats really needed is funding. Its a very possible endeavor.

I am looking for others who have giftings in this area or knowledge where I lack to partner together with me to see this come true.

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3sr95/
Hey, goto this link and tell me what you think.
I have 1000 acres of waterfront Fijian land plus a constrt company.
You can contact me directly from the website.

I'm Goin to FIJI!!!!! I wish.....

About the colonization. Ok yes Mars but it makes no sense to do the Moon first. For one, do we know how to terra-form a planet? Would it not be easier to practice on the small Moon first? Also having a Ship-Yard on the moon, This reason is the launching of huge colonial vessels that could be massive and not need to be launched from the Earth which , for one being a LOT LESS POLLUTION, and probably a hell of a lot cheaper!

Also! We have a space station yea yea. Well a Moon station! There is a little gravity up there, being on a solid mass I be would be a lot more safer and you would not have to worry about the orbit adjusting part. Plus if something goes wrong, or you need help because we are not in Star Trek level, would you not want to be close to the Earth?

And besides how cool would it be to look up at the moon and its got shit on it and lights, maybe just like looking at the Earth, which is an awsome site.

So in conclusion:

1- Moon Station
2- Moon Base
3- Terraform Practice and Developement
4- Ship Yard for future production and launching of 'Colonial' class colony ships to Mars, and beyond.
5- Mars Base
6- Terraform
7- Colonization of Mars
Plus if an asteriod or whatever does hit Earth, you might be the lucky one living on the Moon :)

Ok now for underwater:
I have been saying that for 10 years.
But would it not be easier to develope it in shallow water? Like say emergency you could actually be able to swim up to the top without risk of the bends? Say 20 feet down. And you would not need a ship fleet above because its only 20 feet offshore so you could have the land station which I am sure would be much cheaper.

Oh and as far as a non rusting metal, and this will be a while, in space they could mix gold with whatever the hardest metal for the job together and.....Wala gold does not rust so that I THINK solves the rust issue. Might be a lil expensive because gold is valuable so we would have to set a new trend that gold is worth dogshit.

Ok so in conclusion:

1-Do it in shallow and near land for safety until techniques and technology are perfected
2-Mix gold in with metal for no-rust.


Now it might be hard to get all that metal into space and mix it at the current state so: We would have to figure out a way to make a total weighless room. I dont know if that is possible, but I would have to say electromagnatism might be some feasable way. Where the fuk is TESLA when ya need em?!?


:eek:

So, We colonize the Ocean, The Moon, and Mars. Learn to get along or have the New World Order take over. I know Hitler was a bad guy but if he did take over the world, do you think there would be any wars? You get the idea. This is all feasable its just the problem with, well $$ I am sure, but why I think its not being done is that there are not enough of us visionaries out there anymore we just go to work, go home, fuck your spouce, watch tv. play with the kid, go to sleep. I bet if an asteriod was spotted 5 years away on a dead course and it was too big, like say larger than the Earth, I bet we'd get to Mars in a big fat hurry.

The government would be like uh, remember that whole Area 51 thing? Well kinda.........umm.......we got.....SOME....... spaceship technology ;)

No, No No.
The domes should be made of concrete with a bladder incorporated
into the structure.
www.monolithic.com
Your right in one aspect tho.
Have it built in around 50 feet of water so you wouldnt have to worry about pressurization.
Have the domes (think of teletubbies house) built onland behind a coffer dam. (natural drydock)
When completed, float to the desired location, sink into position holding it down with pylons connected by explosive bolts.
Pump the water out, you have your habitat.
Explosive bolts come into play if there is an emergency.
If there is, blow the bolts and you'll bob to the surface like a cork.

I was just brainstorming on the underwater part. But the clamp/bolts holding the habitat down which could be detonated is a good idea I like that.

I just read this whole thread and they were saying a problem was the saltwater was corroding the metals they used. Also they posted that the concrete may not be reliable when it comes to lots of stress from movement etc. Thats where I had the idea to mix a metal with a non rusting metal.

But here is another idea. You say concrete. Well the whole space combining of metals technique, could you not mix concrete mix with an amount of Rev's non rust mix of Hard metal and gold idea? I have no idea if the two substances would actually mix well like liquid Iron and Gold, but its still an idea.

Does saltwater protect radiation in case of nuke war and there were underwater cities? (Just a thought I ......well.....just thought)



:( I wish it was a bette world where we are actually trying stuff like this.

The Human Smurfs Though:


http://www.monolithic.com/gallery/commercial/roi/secret_garden_L.jpg

Right on man....

At first glance, underwater living could be a solution of humanity survival in case of an asteroid impact.

But I think the refugees under water would have nothing to eat very soon, because dust in the atmosphere, and lack of sunshine, would interrupt photosynthesis not only on land, but also in the sea.

No algues, no plancton, no fish...

Some fish might survive on the decaying matter swept into the sea.

You got it wrong guys, how bout the simple fun of living underwater?

And being in constant fear of leaks and broken CO2-scrubbers.

Nah, you have a satelite pontoon with a generator and compressor
for additional air and power supply.
As for leaks, you can see any leak because of the bubbles escaping, then you concrete over them.
You wouldnt need scrubbers.
As well you have hydroponics systems to generate CO2-O2 exchange.

wasnt there a movie ab an underwater society?
anyways, i say earth is overcrowded, why do that? go to space! its bigger! besides what is the kick in digging underwater tunnels, we already have tunnels under rivers.

If you created a living area under-sea, it wouldn't take much of a marketing genius to get people extremly interested in going there for a holiday. - sort of like a hotel, and you could make a business of it and help mankind at the same time.

ha ha!

Hey any one interested in underwater habitats,
goto
http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3sr95/
and post a hello.

Certainly the genetic engineering aspect holds long term promise; there is no need for whales and dolphins to have underwater accomodation, neither would it be necessary for merpeople.
http://www.orionsarm.com/clades/merpeople.html

as there are many worlds in the galaxy with a thick covering of ice, it is likely that these planets would be relatively easy to convert to water worlds... aquatic species of humanity would be the best colonists for many of these melted worlds.
__________________
SF worldbuilding at
http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html