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Would You Kindly Build an Underwater City?

Nekategorizirano / By / 21. February, 2021

“Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? ‘No!’ says the man in Washington, ‘It belongs to the poor.’ ‘No!’ says the man in the Vatican, ‘It belongs to God.’ ‘No!’ says the man in Moscow, ‘It belongs to everyone.’ I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose… Rapture, a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well.”

Those are Andrew Ryan’s opening words in Bioshock, a dystopian video game developed by 2K that takes place in Rapture, an underwater city hidden from the outside world, where no one is restrained with morality or empathy. 

Among other things, like the question of freedom, the game plays with the idea of the possibility of cities underwater. Underwater cities may seem like something from the sci-fiction section but with enough capital, they could quite possibly quickly transform into reality.

Why?

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The future is uncertain. We humans, as a species, think we are immortal but if we take a look from a more critical perspective, why are not so untouchable. Unpredictable disaster, or attack from aliens (you can never know), could wipe us out from the universe. Migration underwater is one of our options in case of a catastrophe that would make living on land too hard or even impossible. 

While it would not save us from a black hole or asteroid size of that one that brought an end to these animals, for which some people thought it would be a good idea to bring them back to life because they didn’t take time to watch Jurrasic Park (in case of a fall of an asteroid this size water would be boiling hot), it could save us from a volcano eruption, drought, new dominant specie (let’s face it, we weren’t always the ones on the top of the food chain and let’s just hope that Planet of the Apes scenario stays just fiction, even though some would argue we are already under the rule of apes) …

Underwater cities could also serve as a good hiding spot for a society that, for whatever reason, would like to hide from the outside world. Andrew Ryan, the founder of Rapture, build his city deep underwater so no one could find it. There is a good reason why nuclear submarines move around in the deep waters. The high-frequency radiation waves, like radar and phone waves, can not pierce through the water, which is a really good thing for someone that plays the role of an invisible assassin; only that they are required to eliminate not just one person but rather one city. 

There is also a factor of climate change that is changing the world. Because of higher temperatures, the sea level is rising and threatens to float some of the cities that are the closest to sea, like New York. We could counter that and even completely overlook this issue with building cities in the ocean. If the sea doesn’t want us on the shores, let’s just go live in it (although if the sea really has a mind of its own it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to do it; you don’t sleep with an enemy).

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I think it is safe to say that we people dominate the earth. That doesn’t mean that we are so special that we deserve everything (maybe we aren’t even the most intelligent species in the world; just the most successful) and are completely independent, but that we are the specie that could do everything (like exterminating others if we see it fit). 

As the title says of DJ Khalid’s album, we are suffering from success. Overpopulation of the Earth is a real problem. Our living style demands a lot of resources, which results in the destruction of nature. It isn’t a mystery, that we are shrinking natural habitats to please our own needs.

For the ultimate solution, we would probably need to colonize space but until this time comes the other unpopulated 71% of Earth (oceans) would do just fine. If some of us would go and live there, the life on land could restore itself, or at least it wouldn’t disappear so fast; unfortunately, the situation would likely repeat itself in the oceans, because we are greedy creatures.

Some marine biologists are already living underwater for weeks to better understand life down there. Underwater cities would increase our understanding of what is going on there. They would also be a great tourist destination for adventurous, curious travelers and those who just want an interesting picture for Instagram.

The deep sea is full of resources. On the ocean floor lies the opportunity for more industrial-oriented businesses who could mine there easier, if they would be closer to action. There is a lot of unused potentials (as it maybe should stay, but our society needs resources to survive and thrive) that could be used for new technologies. 

We have a lot of reasons why to live underwater and it is something that could be executed in the near future if there is capital for it.

Problems

It is obvious that we humans aren’t built to live underwater. We breathe with lungs not with gills and our bodies are designed to thrive on the land, not in the water.

The pressure under the sea surface it’s too big for our bodies and our limbs are meant for running not swimming. We are not nearly as dominant in the water, where we can see just a small distance in front of ourselves, as we are on the land, where our eyesight functions much better.

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The pressure put on us also dictates what mix of the air we should breathe (the reason why divers in the deep waters use a different mix of air as those in more shallow waters). This means that 150 meters under the surface we should also take care of nitrogen and 300 meters under the surface for helium.

What is more, seawater is not drinkable as it is and without fire, which is a little bit harder to start underwater, eating raw fish is not the safest way to go about; although in the past humans got away with eating raw food and sushi is still a thing. 

These are all the problems that could stop us in the past, but now we have technology that enables us to breathe and even comfortably live underwater in buildings similar to those on the land, seawater can be desalted, food cooked, etc. Living underwater suddenly doesn’t seem like such an impossible dream anymore.

Would We Kindly Look at the Possibilities?

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The city Rapture, although a sympathetic idea, is not yet possible to be built as it is in the Bioshock. Buildings of the same shape as those on the land couldn’t withstand the pressure underwater, where water puts it on them from all sides; this can be solved with a more spherical shape that can withstand those forces.

The first serious solution to the question of how could we live underwater came from the co-inventor of scuba diving gear Jacques-Yves Cousteau. He invented Conshelf, a “house” for researchers that want to live underwater and observe how life runs down there. 

Another invention that shows us that we could live underwater are submarines. Nuclear submarines stay deep under the surface for months until they run out of food supplies and are obliged to replenish them. Their technology for creating air to breathe and desalting seawater so it is drinkable would be really useful for developing a city underwater because last time I checked we needed water and air to survive. 

Sub-Biosphere 2 is another project that could enable us to live in the ocean. Corporation Pauley designed self-sustainable underwater habitat that could be of great help in case of a natural disaster. It is made from 8 interactive biomes, each one with a different ecosystem, that are all connected together with the central one, which serves as a source of power (a concept from 1998).

Some of the inventors saw the opportunity in floating cities instead of underwater ones. Floating villages already exist, so why not just use the idea and realize it on a larger scale.

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Oceanix City is a floating city designed to withstand sea storms, typhoons, and other natural dangers (well in theory; the Titanic was also said to be indestructible until he met this block of ice). Firstly, they would build and populate a neighborhood in the shape of a perfect hexagon that could fit 300 people on the 2 hectares of “land.” Six neighborhoods would then be connected around the central harbor into the village with up to 1650 residents and six villages would be connected around the much bigger central harbor into the floating city of the shape of a hexagon. 

The project is planned to be populated with a plant-based, zero-waste community that uses alternative sources of energy, where vegans could live far away from dirty meat-eaters. It seems like a perfect opportunity for those who have problems with other people’s food choices (but that goes only for plant-based style eating enthusiasts, I’m pretty sure meat-eaters and cannibals are not welcomed). 

There is a legitimate reason why they choose just a plant-based diet because they can farm and produce everything on their own (at least in theory), even their material for construction, bamboos, that grows fast enough to seduce their needs, while fishing could result in even more destruction of marine ecosystems; they can also get a supply boat if they need anything. 

Another, and most likely to be realized, project is Ocean Spiral. Tokyo-based Shimizu corporation is planning to solve the Japanese problem of overpopulation by going underwater.

Ocean Spiral is planned to be built by 2030 (it would probably take longer). Through the infra spiral, it would connect the earth factory on the ocean floor (it is going to be built in the deep waters) with an orb right under the surface. 

Earth factory is going to be used for the acquisition of deep-sea resources and storing and reusing CO2. The next part, infra spiral, wouldn’t just be a connection between an orb and the earth factory. In the infra spiral would Ocean Spiral also produce energy with OTEC (the ocean thermal energy conversion, which creates energy with the temperature difference of shallower and deeper waters), desalinize water, “farm” food (growing fishes, etc.), measure the surroundings for research purposes and have a port for submarines. In the base camp (the orb) people would live and work. There would also be gardens and parks for food and an oxygen supply, a lab for research, restaurant and apartments for living, offices for work …

Everything about it sounds like a utopia, a distant dream, but the fact is it could be built by 2030 as it is promised and humankind would take a huge step in direction of our desire to understand more of an ocean.

Would You Kindly Consider Living Underwater?

Rapture is the city that made many gamers think about the possibility of the city underwater. Underwater cities appear also in other works of fiction, like in Star Wars, Atlantis … It is an attractive concept to live underwater. Our technology is progressing rapidly and an idea of cities like that is not so distant anymore.

Sources/Further Research

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