The First New Subsea Habitat In 40 Years Is About To Launch (technologyreview.com) 36
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Vanguard feels and smells like a new RV. It has long, gray banquettes that convert into bunks, a microwave cleverly hidden under a counter, a functional steel sink with a French press and crockery above. A weird little toilet hides behind a curtain. But some clues hint that you can't just fire up Vanguard's engine and roll off the lot. The least subtle is its door, a massive disc of steel complete with a wheel that spins to lock. Once it is sealed and moved to its permanent home beneath the waves of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary early next year, Vanguard will be the world's first new subsea habitat in nearly four decades. Teams of four scientists will live and work on the seabed for a week at a time, entering and leaving the habitat as scuba divers. Their missions could include reef restoration, species surveys, underwater archaeology, or even astronaut training.
One of Vanguard's modules, unappetizingly named the "wet porch," has a permanent opening in the floor (a.k.a. a "moon pool") that doesn't flood because Vanguard's air pressure is matched to the water around it.It is this pressurization that makes the habitat so useful. Scuba divers working at its maximum operational depth of 50 meters would typically need to make a lengthy stop on their way back to the surface to avoid decompression sickness. This painful and potentially fatal condition, better known as the bends, develops if divers surface too quickly. A traditional 50-meter dive gives scuba divers only a handful of minutes on the seafloor, and they can make only a couple of such dives a day. With Vanguard's atmosphere at the same pressure as the water, its aquanauts need to decompress only once, at the end of their stay. They can potentially dive for many hours every day. That could unlock all kinds of new science and exploration.
One of Vanguard's modules, unappetizingly named the "wet porch," has a permanent opening in the floor (a.k.a. a "moon pool") that doesn't flood because Vanguard's air pressure is matched to the water around it.It is this pressurization that makes the habitat so useful. Scuba divers working at its maximum operational depth of 50 meters would typically need to make a lengthy stop on their way back to the surface to avoid decompression sickness. This painful and potentially fatal condition, better known as the bends, develops if divers surface too quickly. A traditional 50-meter dive gives scuba divers only a handful of minutes on the seafloor, and they can make only a couple of such dives a day. With Vanguard's atmosphere at the same pressure as the water, its aquanauts need to decompress only once, at the end of their stay. They can potentially dive for many hours every day. That could unlock all kinds of new science and exploration.
Re: How much of the science (Score:2)
Re: How much of the science (Score:1)
Do their funders demand blood sacrifice? How many will be violently assaulted, killed, given diseases then killed, implanted with tracking devices, experimented upon, eaten, bred to be eaten?
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How much of the new science will involve violence to sea creatures?
Compared to the amount of abuse sea life endures at the hands of Florida tourists at the beaches, basically zero.
Re: How much of the science (Score:2)
Did you just say two wrongs make a right? What about setting a good example by simply leaving sea (and land) creatures alone except maybe to engage them voluntarily by learning their languages? Why does science so often excuse violent interference in animal lives? Where are the ethics?
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Two wrongs don't make a right.
But three lefts do.
Re: How much of the science (Score:2)
Are you aware that Jains walked this path many millennia since, and counsel death by self-starvation to scrub the karma associated with eating anything?
Re: How much of the science (Score:4)
See what eating meat does to you?
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Are you seriously suggesting a coverup? Simply ignoring the ocean and NOT studying human impacts on sea creatures? That will certainly continue the problem.
Are you a lobbyist for polluters or something? Why do you NOT want research done? Did your company dump a shitload of toxins in the water or something?
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I know you are likely batshit insane, since so far you have only been arguing with a strawman that you yourself created in this thread, but if you still have enough reason left in that little brain of you
Re: How much of the science (Score:2)
What if scientists started with the ethical principle "First, do no harm"?
If polluters are dumping toxins, can we engineer a financial solution to pay them not to?
What if scientists studied finance to fund compensated conservation rather than torturing animals to get cherry-picked data they can then use to punish other humans?
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What if scientists studied finance
What if economists studied architecture?
What if stevedores studied ballet?
Are you okay?
Re: How much of the science (Score:2)
Has ChatGPT disproved your premise that only humans can use language?
Re: (Score:3)
No. ChatGPT parrots language without understanding it. That is not using language. "Using" something implies achieving a purpose by means of that thing, and ChatGPT has no purpose of its own.
Re: How much of the science (Score:2)
What if its purpose is to serve man?
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You haven't lived until you've punched a Manatee.
When their dumb bleached and bloated faces finally take the fist that they so richly deserve, it's more than just satisfying. It's frikkin bliss.
*POW!*
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Well, hopefully they've built in a grill or something so you can violently marinade and cook up some lovely sea creatures.
As long as... (Score:4, Funny)
...they don't still have to deal with those jerks in Pod 6.
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I'm looking forward to the bored captain launching his pirate radio station...
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sealab 2021 -> frisky dingo -> archer
not a bad run of nonsense. (though Archer prob went on like 10 seasons too long... early Archer was epic.)
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Seaquest! (Score:3)
Can they get a dolphin and name him Darwin for this moon pool?
Team of only four? (Score:2)
Murphy, Quinn, Debbie... so we gotta choose between Marco, Stormy, Sparks, or Hesh?
Re: (Score:2)
So, Hesh, right?
MC Chris FTW.
Launch? (Score:3, Funny)
I think they mean sink.
6 Minutes nodecompression (Score:2)
Nope, Richard Harris and Friend used them recently (Score:2)
They also used resting/decompressions stations on their 245M dive, which may not be shown in this cut version. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
aquanauts (Score:2)
Are they calling it (Score:2)
Rapture?
low frontier (Score:2)
Sealab 2021 (Score:2)
...seems to be about four years late.
One way or another, physiology will win. (Score:2)
OK, on one hand they have a moon pool - meaning that the habitat is at ambient (sea-depth) pressure. While on the other hand, they have a "massive steel door" implying a pressure difference. Either way, the inhabitants of the habitat will have to either saturate their bodies with gases to match the sea-depth pressure. Which means a pressurised transfer vessel and "descending" and "ascending" in a surface pressure chamber. Or their transfer vessel will have to take many hours to days for the transit from sur