Oceanic exploration company DEEP has a mission: It wants people to go deep—all the way to the ocean floor—and take up residence there.
On its webpage, the United Kingdom-based deep-sea tech company says it intends “to make humans aquatic.”
Conquering space and conquering the sea have been human ambitions for generations. In the 1960s, the global “Space Race” fixated audiences as the United States and the Soviet Union competed to be first to reach the Moon. By the 1980s, the two nations had begun discussion for collaboration, and the idea for the International Space Station (ISS) was born. In November of 2000, the new ISS received its first crew-in-residence. It’s been inhabited continuously ever since.
DEEP plans to create a similar habitat for humans under the sea. Its goal is to launch and populate its Sentinel System platform as soon as 2027. (DEEP optimistically phrases this state of habitation as “from 2027.” That means that beyond that date, DEEP intends for segments of seafloor to be continuously inhabited.)
Sentinel proposes a system of connectible modules. These are designed to house people with appropriate pressure, atmosphere, and temperature in comfortable undersea living, dining, sleeping, and working spaces. Each system would be built on the seafloor at depths up to 656 feet. “Aquanauts” would arrive to one type of Sentinel station by submarines, which dock to allow passengers into and out of the habitat. Another version would allow experienced deep-sea divers to arrive without use of a submersible vehicle.
Sean Wolpert is president of DEEP. He says the Sentinel platforms will allow each person to stay at least a month at a time on the ocean floor before returning to the surface. (Studies on astronauts show that the human body undergoes stresses and changes after long missions in space. Similar effects on the body over time when dwelling undersea are possible and need more study.)
Wolpert also says that each module offers about the square footage of half the passenger space of a Boeing 777. (That aircraft can seat up to about 300 people.) A module measures about 20 feet wide by 55 feet long with two levels. DEEP’s director of manufacturing Louise Slade says robotic machinery will 3-D print the metal modules, and each can be generated in about 90 days.
“Everyone’s focused on going to space,” says Wolpert. “But we have this wonderful alien world in the ocean, a world that is wholly underexplored. . . . This is the world we need to explore first, before we’re so keen to get off of it.”
Whatever the Lord pleases, He does, in heaven and on Earth, in the seas and all deeps. — Psalm 135:6
Why? The mysteries of the deep sea are great, and they hold wonders placed by God for His glory and possibly also humankind’s good. Learning about His creation shows us more about the Creator.
For more about submersibles and exploring the ocean, see Secrets of a Civil War Submarine by Sally M. Walker in our Recommended Reading.
