Hello Gang,
Take a look at this wonderful website,

This website is about the building of an undersea colony a human undersea city a permanent dwelling place for people and even families. Before today, it was but a fantasy, as it has always been. But no more. As of today, the dream of permanently settling the undersea regions of our earth has begun. The keys have been handed to us and we are prepared to open a frontier spanning over three quarters of the earth to human habitation.

http://underseacolony.com/

Alex Michael Bonnici

On Feb 20, 2007, at 04:54 UTC, Alex Michael Bonnici wrote:

> This website is about the building of an undersea colony a human
> undersea city a permanent dwelling place for people and even
> families. Before today, it was but a fantasy, as it has always been.
> But no more. As of today, the dream of permanently settling the
> undersea regions of our earth has begun. The keys have been handed
> to us and we are prepared to open a frontier spanning over three
> quarters of the earth to human habitation.

Yeech. I certainly hope that doesn't happen! We're doing quite enough
damage to the ocean ecosystems just from the surface; I shudder to
think what would happen if we actually started inhabiting them in large
numbers.

Fortunately, I doubt this will actually get very far. Living under
water deeper than about 10 m is substantially harder, in most ways,
than living in space. Keeping pressure out is much harder than keeping
it in, and if you don't keep it out (even as you do EVAs), then your
people will be saturated with nitrogen, risking death from the bends
and (below 30 m or so) nitrogen narcosis. Unless of course you have
them all breathing hydrogen rather than nitrogen, which would be
amusing.

Best,
- Joe

Joe Strout -- joe@...

From: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of joe@...

> Keeping pressure out is much harder than keeping it in,
> and if you don't keep it out (even as you do EVAs), then
> your people will be saturated with nitrogen, risking death
> from the bends and (below 30 m or so) nitrogen narcosis.
> Unless of course you have them all breathing hydrogen
> rather than nitrogen, which would be amusing.

My understanding is that they can replace nitrogen with helium, but that
there are limits to that approach.

I've also heard it said that above a certain pressure, oxygen itself
becomes a poison. Hard to see a way to work around that.

Regards,

Mike Combs

On Feb 20, 2007, at 16:32 UTC, Combs, Mike wrote:

> > Unless of course you have them all breathing hydrogen
> > rather than nitrogen, which would be amusing.
>
> My understanding is that they can replace nitrogen with helium, but
> that there are limits to that approach.

Oh goodness yes, I meant to say helium, not hydrogen... how
embarrassing. I guess I type "hydrogen" a lot more often than helium,
given its many uses (and sources) in the solar system. But the amusing
result I had in mind was sounding like a bunch of chipmunks (due to
helium), not rampant fires (due to hydrogen).

> I've also heard it said that above a certain pressure, oxygen itself
> becomes a poison. Hard to see a way to work around that.

Well, it's the partial pressure of oxygen that matters, so at higher
pressures you can simply have less oxygen around (pretty much the
inverse of what O'Neill proposed for space colonies, not that I'm a fan
of the low-pressure high-O2 approach myself). See
.

But I'm sure there are limits to this, too. You need a buffer gas, and
it really can't be nitrogen, unless you stay at very shallow depths
(and then, you'd have to be very careful not to change depth much or
you'd get severe bends).

I wish the web site had more detail. Despite the fact that I think
this is a really bad idea from the point of view of protecting ocean
ecosystems, as well as turning attention inward instead of outward, the
engineer in me is intrigued by the technical challenges.

Best,
- Joe

Joe Strout -- joe@...

From: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of joe@...

> But the amusing
> result I had in mind was sounding like a bunch of chipmunks (due to
> helium), not rampant fires (due to hydrogen).

I heard somebody say that James Cameron was fully aware that his
deep-divers in The Abyss should have sounded like chipmunks for the
duration of the movie, but simply decided to depart from technical
reality because it would have just been too silly.

Regards,

Mike Combs

> From: joe@...
> Fortunately, I doubt this will actually get very far. Living under
> water deeper than about 10 m is substantially harder, in most ways,
> than living in space.

Why do you say this? Every year hundreds of military submariners go down to
300m, while barely a dozen astranauts get into orbit. And that's in steel
submarines, concrete is a much more useful material while in compression.
Increase the strength of the hull by 5, or increase to 5x sea level
pressure, and you can go down a mile.

> (even as you do EVAs), then your people will
> be saturated with nitrogen, risking death from the bends

Stop being Zubriny. Hard Suits and advanced robots can both function at very
great depth. It may also be practical to float large assemballies to higher
depths, or put them inside 'dry dockss' built on the ocean floor.

Ocean currents aso present substantial power sources. The transatlantic
drift could sonstantly generate 8x more energy than the maximum wind energy
for any given turbine design. Sound familiar anyone?

John

On Feb 20, 2007, at 20:41 UTC, ANTIcarrot wrote:

> > Fortunately, I doubt this will actually get very far. Living under
> > water deeper than about 10 m is substantially harder, in most ways,
> > than living in space.
>
> Why do you say this? Every year hundreds of military submariners go
> down to 300m, while barely a dozen astranauts get into orbit.

Yes, but the submariners can't exit their sub at depth, either. I
assume people actually living and trying to build a colony will need to
occasionally go outside -- certainly you can do this in space without
too much trouble, because it's not too hard to build a space suit that
maintains internal pressure.

Underwater you have the opposite problem; you need a suit that keeps
out the external pressure. That's a much harder engineering problem.
There are hard suits, but they're a LOT bulkier and more awkward than
space suits, despite the fact that (as you point out) we have a lot
more experience with underwater operations than with space operations.
It's simply a harder problem.

I do wonder if this is how they intend to deal with the problem, though
(i.e., maintaining 1 ATM pressure in the habitats, vehicles, and in
hard suits when they do EVAs). It's certainly not the standard
approach used by underwater bases, but I guess it would work if you
were consistent about it.

> And that's in steel submarines, concrete is a much more useful
> material while in compression.

True, the hard part isn't the habitats so much as the vehicles and
especially the suits.

> Stop being Zubriny.

Hey, you take that back! :)

Best,
- Joe

Joe Strout -- joe@...

Hello Mike,
In the science fiction novel Oceanspace by Allen Steele the Aquanauts in a deep-sea laboratory solved the chipmunk voice problem by wearing special headsets connected to a central computer and using an AI program to translate the garbled speak into proper English.

For a review of the book follow this link:

http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue142/books.html

Alex

From: Combs, Mike
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2007 8:30 PM
Subject: RE: [spacesettlers] underseacolony.com : A Real Undersea Colony

From: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of joe@...

> But the amusing
> result I had in mind was sounding like a bunch of chipmunks (due to
> helium), not rampant fires (due to hydrogen).

I heard somebody say that James Cameron was fully aware that his
deep-divers in The Abyss should have sounded like chipmunks for the
duration of the movie, but simply decided to depart from technical
reality because it would have just been too silly.

Regards,

Mike Combs

Hello Alex and Friends,

The UnderseaColony.com website is mine. I have been traveling and unaware that this thread was running.

Our colony will be pressurized at 1.7 atmospheres with an earth-normal atmosphere. I have lived at this pressure undersea for more than 30 days with zero ill effects. Indeed, cuts heal faster and sickness seems to go away faster - probably because the ppo2 is higher. The person or persons who tried to force humans to live at high pressures breathing exotic gasses must have been on drugs. And they have mostly found out it does not work and in the long term damages human physiology rated by the Creator to be at 1 ATM, 1G and 72 degrees F. Go ahead and stray very far outside these design paramaters and you will always pay a high price, as undersea and space exploration has discovered the hard way.

No problem keeping the water out - subs have managed this with great success for more than a century and none of them report having many problems at this rather straighforward engineering feat.

The whole discussion about exotic gasses is not applicable in our colony.

As far as eco system damage - we are doing far more damage by NOT being there and having a human scientist team onsite observing it. We would never consider this approach for land operations, it would be deemed totally irresponsible. Further, to rule out the presence of humans anywhere on the planet because of a fear of the "health of mother earth" is overtly simplistic liberal hogwash. Without human management, there are a few humans who will indeed destroy it. We are the stewards of the planet and need to be there onsite to understand it, watch it, manage it and be ready to defend it from whomever or whatever. Likewise, these undersea areas will become strategically important as the human presence inevitably expands. If any culture denies or foregoes participating in the opening of any new frontier, they will disappear as they are replaced. It is an historical model that has become a recognized reality in all geopolitical power paradigms. You can try and leave it
alone and pristine, but someone will show up and plant their flag and you will NOT be invited to their party.

I am starting a group on Undersea Colonies. I will let you folks know when I get it up and running.

Thanks for your thoughts!

Alex Michael Bonnici wrote:
Hello Mike,
In the science fiction novel Oceanspace by Allen Steele the Aquanauts in a deep-sea laboratory solved the chipmunk voice problem by wearing special headsets connected to a central computer and using an AI program to translate the garbled speak into proper English.

For a review of the book follow this link:

http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue142/books.html

Alex

From: Combs, Mike
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2007 8:30 PM
Subject: RE: [spacesettlers] underseacolony.com : A Real Undersea Colony

From: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of joe@...

> But the amusing
> result I had in mind was sounding like a bunch of chipmunks (due to
> helium), not rampant fires (due to hydrogen).

I heard somebody say that James Cameron was fully aware that his
deep-divers in The Abyss should have sounded like chipmunks for the
duration of the movie, but simply decided to depart from technical
reality because it would have just been too silly.

Regards,

Mike Combs

Finding fabulous fares is fun.

On Feb 21, 2007, at 02:00 UTC, Dennis Chamberland wrote:

> The UnderseaColony.com website is mine. I have been traveling and
> unaware that this thread was running.

It just got started. I'm glad to hear that you're here and willing to
discuss it -- this also suggests that you have interest in both space
colonization and ocean colonization, which raises interesting questions
for another time.

For now, though, I hope you'll excuse a few more mundane questions...

> Our colony will be pressurized at 1.7 atmospheres with an earth
> -normal atmosphere. I have lived at this pressure undersea for more
> than 30 days with zero ill effects.

Let's see, that's equivalent to a depth of 7 m or so, IIRC (I was a
sport diver years ago but haven't done any diving since then, so I hope
my memory isn't too rusty). I wouldn't expect ill effects from being
there, but what about going "outside"? I guess I was thinking that if
the hab is at lower than ambient pressure, you have to carefully watch
your dive time and/or have to decompress after being outside too long;
and if it's at ambient pressure, then you wouldn't be able to surface
without long decompression time.

But maybe 1.7 ATM is a sweet spot -- that's about where you'd make a
decompression stop after a long dive anyway, isn't it? Once your
nitrogen has equalized to that pressure, you can probably surface with
little risk without further decompression stops. (I seem to recall my
PADI dive tables starting at 30 ft or 2 ATM.) Yet it's enough pressure
to protect you against the bends when you come in from higher pressure,
at least within some limits. That's clever.

So, how deep will these habitats be, and what exactly are the limits
for outside time without risking the bends when you come in? (I'm
assuming that you don't plan to use hard suits.) Also, am I right that
if you've been at 1.7 ATM for a long while, you can still surface?

> And they have mostly found out it does not work and in the long term
> damages human physiology rated by the Creator to be at 1 ATM, 1G and
> 72 degrees F. Go ahead and stray very far outside these design
> paramaters and you will always pay a high price, as undersea and
> space exploration has discovered the hard way.

I tend to agree with that. I'm not a proponent of the theory that we
can stock our space colonies with substantially thinner atmosphere by
increasing the pp02; I suspect that there would be physiological
side-effects, as you suggest. Better to use an Earth-normal atmosphere
typical of high but populated areas (e.g. Denver).

> No problem keeping the water out - subs have managed this with
> great success for more than a century and none of them report having
> many problems at this rather straighforward engineering feat.

Right, that was never my concern.

> The whole discussion about exotic gasses is not applicable in our
> colony.

You'll be breathing compressed air on dives, too?

> As far as eco system damage - we are doing far more damage by NOT
> being there and having a human scientist team onsite observing it. We
> would never consider this approach for land operations, it would be
> deemed totally irresponsible.

Sorry, I'm not folllowing your point here. Can you elaborate?

> Further, to rule out the presence of
> humans anywhere on the planet because of a fear of the "health of
> mother earth" is overtly simplistic liberal hogwash. Without human
> management, there are a few humans who will indeed destroy it. We
> are the stewards of the planet and need to be there onsite to
> understand it, watch it, manage it and be ready to defend it from
> whomever or whatever.

That sounds like simplistic right-wing hogwash to me. History does not
show humans ever moving into an area in large numbers to understand it,
watch it, manage it, and defend it. Rather, everywhere humans have
colonized in modern times, ecological diversity has been nearly wiped
out. This should concern us greatly, because diversity makes
ecosystems robust; lack of diversity makes them susceptible to collapse.

So far our impact on the oceans has been fairly minor, apart from large
food species. Our impact on the land has been extreme, because we're
here by the billions, and our own needs pretty much always come ahead
of whatever critters previously occupied the land we feel we need. On
what basis can you seriously expect it would be any different in the
ocean?

A small research outpost, I would fully support. Those have natural
incentives to protect what they study, and in any case are too small to
have a significant impact on a global scale. But that doesn't seem to
be what's proposed here -- we're talking about large-scale human
habitation of the ocean. I don't see how anyone can claim this will
not have an adverse (and dramatic) impact on ocean ecosystems. It's
reasonably possible not to care, I suppose, but not to deny it.

> Likewise, these undersea areas will become
> strategically important as the human presence inevitably expands. If
> any culture denies or foregoes participating in the opening of any
> new frontier, they will disappear as they are replaced. It is an
> historical model that has become a recognized reality in all
> geopolitical power paradigms. You can try and leave it
> alone and pristine, but someone will show up and plant their flag
> and you will NOT be invited to their party.

So now the argument is, people are going to wreck the oceans anyway so
it may as well be us? That's not a very noble argument. I'm not at
all convinced that it's a valid one, either. International treaties
have chilled or stopped exploitation before; they could do it in this
case too. It's not as though we have nowhere else to go -- there is
space, which unlike the oceans, is both unlimited and without any
ecosystems to destroy.

Best,
- Joe

Joe Strout -- joe@...

Joe,

I've moved this reply over to the new group Undersea Colonies.

ALL of your comments are good.

Dennis

joe@... wrote:
On Feb 21, 2007, at 02:00 UTC, Dennis Chamberland wrote:

> The UnderseaColony.com website is mine. I have been traveling and
> unaware that this thread was running.

It just got started. I'm glad to hear that you're here and willing to
discuss it -- this also suggests that you have interest in both space
colonization and ocean colonization, which raises interesting questions
for another time.

For now, though, I hope you'll excuse a few more mundane questions...

> Our colony will be pressurized at 1.7 atmospheres with an earth
> -normal atmosphere. I have lived at this pressure undersea for more
> than 30 days with zero ill effects.

Let's see, that's equivalent to a depth of 7 m or so, IIRC (I was a
sport diver years ago but haven't done any diving since then, so I hope
my memory isn't too rusty). I wouldn't expect ill effects from being
there, but what about going "outside"? I guess I was thinking that if
the hab is at lower than ambient pressure, you have to carefully watch
your dive time and/or have to decompress after being outside too long;
and if it's at ambient pressure, then you wouldn't be able to surface
without long decompression time.

But maybe 1.7 ATM is a sweet spot -- that's about where you'd make a
decompression stop after a long dive anyway, isn't it? Once your
nitrogen has equalized to that pressure, you can probably surface with
little risk without further decompression stops. (I seem to recall my
PADI dive tables starting at 30 ft or 2 ATM.) Yet it's enough pressure
to protect you against the bends when you come in from higher pressure,
at least within some limits. That's clever.

So, how deep will these habitats be, and what exactly are the limits
for outside time without risking the bends when you come in? (I'm
assuming that you don't plan to use hard suits.) Also, am I right that
if you've been at 1.7 ATM for a long while, you can still surface?

> And they have mostly found out it does not work and in the long term
> damages human physiology rated by the Creator to be at 1 ATM, 1G and
> 72 degrees F. Go ahead and stray very far outside these design
> paramaters and you will always pay a high price, as undersea and
> space exploration has discovered the hard way.

I tend to agree with that. I'm not a proponent of the theory that we
can stock our space colonies with substantially thinner atmosphere by
increasing the pp02; I suspect that there would be physiological
side-effects, as you suggest. Better to use an Earth-normal atmosphere
typical of high but populated areas (e.g. Denver).

> No problem keeping the water out - subs have managed this with
> great success for more than a century and none of them report having
> many problems at this rather straighforward engineering feat.

Right, that was never my concern.

> The whole discussion about exotic gasses is not applicable in our
> colony.

You'll be breathing compressed air on dives, too?

> As far as eco system damage - we are doing far more damage by NOT
> being there and having a human scientist team onsite observing it. We
> would never consider this approach for land operations, it would be
> deemed totally irresponsible.

Sorry, I'm not folllowing your point here. Can you elaborate?

> Further, to rule out the presence of
> humans anywhere on the planet because of a fear of the "health of
> mother earth" is overtly simplistic liberal hogwash. Without human
> management, there are a few humans who will indeed destroy it. We
> are the stewards of the planet and need to be there onsite to
> understand it, watch it, manage it and be ready to defend it from
> whomever or whatever.

That sounds like simplistic right-wing hogwash to me. History does not
show humans ever moving into an area in large numbers to understand it,
watch it, manage it, and defend it. Rather, everywhere humans have
colonized in modern times, ecological diversity has been nearly wiped
out. This should concern us greatly, because diversity makes
ecosystems robust; lack of diversity makes them susceptible to collapse.

So far our impact on the oceans has been fairly minor, apart from large
food species. Our impact on the land has been extreme, because we're
here by the billions, and our own needs pretty much always come ahead
of whatever critters previously occupied the land we feel we need. On
what basis can you seriously expect it would be any different in the
ocean?

A small research outpost, I would fully support. Those have natural
incentives to protect what they study, and in any case are too small to
have a significant impact on a global scale. But that doesn't seem to
be what's proposed here -- we're talking about large-scale human
habitation of the ocean. I don't see how anyone can claim this will
not have an adverse (and dramatic) impact on ocean ecosystems. It's
reasonably possible not to care, I suppose, but not to deny it.

> Likewise, these undersea areas will become
> strategically important as the human presence inevitably expands. If
> any culture denies or foregoes participating in the opening of any
> new frontier, they will disappear as they are replaced. It is an
> historical model that has become a recognized reality in all
> geopolitical power paradigms. You can try and leave it
> alone and pristine, but someone will show up and plant their flag
> and you will NOT be invited to their party.

So now the argument is, people are going to wreck the oceans anyway so
it may as well be us? That's not a very noble argument. I'm not at
all convinced that it's a valid one, either. International treaties
have chilled or stopped exploitation before; they could do it in this
case too. It's not as though we have nowhere else to go -- there is
space, which unlike the oceans, is both unlimited and without any
ecosystems to destroy.

Best,
- Joe

Joe Strout -- joe@...

Need Mail bonding?

--- In spacesettlers, "Combs, Mike" wrote:

> I heard somebody say that James Cameron was fully aware that his
> deep-divers in The Abyss should have sounded like chipmunks for the
> duration of the movie, but simply decided to depart from technical
> reality because it would have just been too silly.

In the James Bond movie _For Your Eyes Only_, it is specifically
stated that Bond and Melina are using a "special mix of oxygen
and helium." But Roger Moore still has his baritone, and Carole
Bouquet sounds like her regular self too. But I mean, come on: James
Bond can't be sounding like a chipmunk! Just imagine it: "The name's
Bond, James Bond..." and he sounds like freaking Alvin.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, joe@... wrote:
> Yeech. I certainly hope that doesn't happen! We're doing quite
> enough damage to the ocean ecosystems just from the surface; I
> shudder to think what would happen if we actually started
> inhabiting them in large numbers.

I couldn't agree more. One of the main reasons I'm an advocate of
space exploration and settlement, and a member of this list, is: no
pre-existing biospheres to lay waste to. (As far as we currently
know.)

> Fortunately, I doubt this will actually get very far. Living under
> water deeper than about 10 m is substantially harder, in most ways,
> than living in space. Keeping pressure out is much harder than >
keeping
> it in,

A building down at the ocean bottom would have to always contend
with pressures, that would instantly destroy the building and
vaporize the inhabitants inside it, if that building were to suffer
any kind of structural failure such as a non-microscopic leak or
crack.

It will/would take nanotech to make buildings that could be down
there permanently. And for what? So that humanity can have a couple
more generations of population explosion before having to go to zero
population growth? No thanks.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Alex Michael Bonnici"
wrote:
>
> Hello Gang,
> Take a look at this wonderful website,
>
> This website is about the building of an undersea colony a
human undersea city a permanent dwelling place for people and even
families. Before today, it was but a fantasy, as it has always been.
But no more. As of today, the dream of permanently settling the
undersea regions of our earth has begun. The keys have been handed to
us and we are prepared to open a frontier spanning over three quarters
of the earth to human habitation.
>
> http://underseacolony.com/

Permanently settling some of the very inhospitable and largely
unpopulated land areas on Earth is already an opportunity for
anybody. Probably safer, probably much cheaper.

Siberia, the Australian outback, the Sahara desert, the Greenland
ice cap, Antarctica, Alaska, large parts of Canada, are already
available. The ocean surface could be settled with appropriate
technology, too.

Any of these could and should be tried before trying to settle
underwater.

Just want to point out something. The Canadian north does not need new tech to be inhabited. I am uncertain about most of those other areas, but the reason our north is so nearly uninhabited is because there is no financial incentive to be so far away from the large cities. Northern Ontario has a fairly decent foresting industry, but far northern Canada has no major resources worth getting at yet. I think the same will happen with undersea colonies (even if those need new technology, and I think they'll need a fair bit)... won't happen untill there is something for them to sell.

Sincerly-
Michael P.

William wrote: >Siberia, the Australian outback, the Sahara desert, the Greenland
>ice cap, Antarctica, Alaska, large parts of Canada, are already
>available. The ocean surface could be settled with appropriate
>technology, too.

G'day all,

William, the sea floor is a true frontier, the Earth's land areas
are not. Try to set up a colony in Australia or even Antarctica and
see how far you will get. The settlers of Australia and the USA were
able to set up a new society, that can no longer be done anywhere on
the Earth's surface. The frontiers of Sea and Space still allow you
to. The great advantage to the Sea is that transportation costs are
far less then Space.

My advice to anyone who wants to explore a new world is to take up
diving.

ta

Ralph

PS
I hope to be joining Dennis a crew member of the Atlantica
Expeditions.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "William" wrote:

> From: ralph_buttigieg
> William, the sea floor is a true frontier, the Earth's land areas
> are not. The frontiers of Sea and Space still allow you
> to. The great advantage to the Sea is that transportation costs are
> far less then Space.

O'Neil did a lot of work to prove that his colonies were workable. He didn't
put up some fanciful pictures and mumble about the details. I'm sure you
coudl build under sea colonies (or at least something analagous to under sea
oil rigs) and I'm sure there will be economic incentives. But until the sea
settlement website expands and includes some hard detaisl and facts, many on
this list will remain extremely skeptical.

John

I agree with John:

What's the point to colonize the ocean floor? If the thing is to
recover resources we could do it living in the land or even in
floating islands in the surface of the oceans. I don't see the point
to live bellow a whole sea, just for fun.

Going to space is different. In the asteroid belt there are
resources enough to support a societies with a thrillion human
beings, and a standar of living that would make today look like the
stone age. Going to space is to take a new step into the future.

Conquesting space is the real challenge, I believe. Living on top of
the gravity well, managing all the resources of the Solar System
that are several order of magnitude greather than the ones of earth!

And that's why we follow O'Neill

Regards,

Omar

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "ANTIcarrot"
wrote:
>
> > From: ralph_buttigieg
> > William, the sea floor is a true frontier, the Earth's land areas
> > are not. The frontiers of Sea and Space still allow you
> > to. The great advantage to the Sea is that transportation costs
are
> > far less then Space.
>
> O'Neil did a lot of work to prove that his colonies were workable.
He didn't
> put up some fanciful pictures and mumble about the details. I'm
sure you
> coudl build under sea colonies (or at least something analagous to
under sea
> oil rigs) and I'm sure there will be economic incentives. But
until the sea
> settlement website expands and includes some hard detaisl and
facts, many on
> this list will remain extremely skeptical.
>
> John
>
simplicity and ease of use." - PC Magazine

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "ralph_buttigieg"
> William, the sea floor is a true frontier, the Earth's land areas
> are not. Try to set up a colony in Australia or even Antarctica and
> see how far you will get.

Antarctica is currently off-limits to permanent human settlement. And
rightly so.

The Australian outback I don't know about. Wouldn't the government
want to settle and exploit this huge area? One would have to
purchase the land with a payment/bribe to the government, if that's
what you mean by it not being a frontier. But one might have to
pay/bribe the U.N. to set up colonies on the ocean floor, too. The
ocean bottom I believe is, outside of national waters, legally
international property.

> My advice to anyone who wants to explore a new world is to take up
> diving.
>
> ta
>
> Ralph
>
> PS
> I hope to be joining Dennis a crew member of the Atlantica
> Expeditions.

No problem with that, but this isn't human settlement.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "William" wrote:
>
> --- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, joe@ wrote:
> > Yeech. I certainly hope that doesn't happen! We're doing quite
> > enough damage to the ocean ecosystems just from the surface; I
> > shudder to think what would happen if we actually started
> > inhabiting them in large numbers.
>
> I couldn't agree more. One of the main reasons I'm an advocate of
> space exploration and settlement, and a member of this list, is: no
> pre-existing biospheres to lay waste to. (As far as we currently
> know.)

I suppose that some sort of *small-scale* ocean settlement could
occur, for this reason: man-made structures in shallow waters, and
on the ocean surface, are quite often places that are teeming with
fish and other life. They use these structures as places to shelter
or anchor themselves from ocean currents, and so sea-life communities
build up around them. There could be "homes" out on these places that
could double as seafood farms. Marshall Savage in "The Millenial
Project" talked about these sort of combination habitats.

This is not the deep ocean bottom, though. This is the far smaller
amount of area near coastlines or on the continental shelfs. Or, on
the ocean surface.

Hello William and fellow spacesettlers,
In Marshall Savage's "The Millennial Project" combination habitats where to eventually move out to the deeper oceans where they would eventually increase the productivity of ocean zones nearly devoid of algae. He refers to these regions as "oceanic deserts". In the book Savage mentions that one of the side benefits of using OTEC power production is that bringing up cold nutrient rich water from the depths of the ocean would increase the productivity of these ocean deserts. So in a sense you are creating new habitats for life.

At the risk of stretching an analogy to far wouldn't that be like making the desert regions of Palestine bloom?

Best Regards,

Alex

From: William
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2007 5:14 PM
Subject: [spacesettlers] Re: underseacolony.com : A Real Undersea Colony

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "William" wrote:
>
> --- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, joe@ wrote:
> > Yeech. I certainly hope that doesn't happen! We're doing quite
> > enough damage to the ocean ecosystems just from the surface; I
> > shudder to think what would happen if we actually started
> > inhabiting them in large numbers.
>
> I couldn't agree more. One of the main reasons I'm an advocate of
> space exploration and settlement, and a member of this list, is: no
> pre-existing biospheres to lay waste to. (As far as we currently
> know.)

I suppose that some sort of *small-scale* ocean settlement could
occur, for this reason: man-made structures in shallow waters, and
on the ocean surface, are quite often places that are teeming with
fish and other life. They use these structures as places to shelter
or anchor themselves from ocean currents, and so sea-life communities
build up around them. There could be "homes" out on these places that
could double as seafood farms. Marshall Savage in "The Millenial
Project" talked about these sort of combination habitats.

This is not the deep ocean bottom, though. This is the far smaller
amount of area near coastlines or on the continental shelfs. Or, on
the ocean surface.

A lot of the Australian Outback is desert, not much there and anything
you did try to set up would be objected to by the original inhabitants,
the environmentalists, the NIMBY's and many others.
Water and access to it would be the big problem (currently there is a
drought that has been running for a few years) and when you get water
you get too much. There is a reason this poem mentions Drought and
Flooding rains.

My Country
by
Dorothea Mackellar
(1885 - 1968)

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die-
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold-
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land-
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand-
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

Dorothea Mackellar

Of course there are a few possible mine sites around the place, so that
would help with income. More info can be found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outback
I can see that the odd undersea colony could be useful and successful
depending on where it is and what it does, but the main arena for us is
Space.

B

William wrote:

Actually I just thought of something an undersea colony can do for money
- depending on where it is. They can use an OTEC setup to produces
liquid hydrogen, which could then be bought by someone to fuel a Sea
Dragon type operation ;)

B.

b wrote:

On 2/25/07, b wrote:
(...)
> Actually I just thought of something an undersea colony can do for money
> - depending on where it is. They can use an OTEC setup to produces
> liquid hydrogen, which could then be bought by someone to fuel a Sea
(...)

But again I guess it would be cheaper to build the habitable part of
an OTEC colony on the surface, and let just the OTEC "tower"
submerged.