underseacolony.com : A Real Undersea Colony

--- 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.