Living underwater

So I was listening to an episode of Flash Forward that was discussing underwater life and it got me thinking, what might life underwater actually look like? What would it's purposes be? (Spoiler, part of life underwater is having a high voice because you gotta replace the nitrogen in air with helium cause high pressure nitrogen is poisonous) So far in the 60s there was SeaLab and SeaLab 2 to test the concept of being able to live hundreds of feet underwater. And as was the purpose of SeaLab, scientific research would be at least the first reason to be underwater. But there's also some companies that are looking at seafloor mining, which might be a purpose to live underwater (assuming robots don't replace humans first)

I mean depends if you want to live underwater with help of equipment or be naturally evolved to do so... I love being in water but I think if it was my environment I couldn't stand going out of water because it would feel too dry probably and too bright as well. So that would be a bummer as we'd probably be limited to one environment (as we are now in a way but with gear we can also enjoy the waters which i think will be much more difficult to accomplish if the situation were vice versa). Also depends on how deep we talking about, I would rather not live in the bottom of the ocean because there are some freaky evolutions that have taken place there which we can't even imagine and I assume we would not look the most attractive anymore if we were to obtain that + not to mention the extreme conditions. I think we wouldn't be at the top of the food chain for sure and survival would be much more difficult. The problem of there being underwater volcanos, all kinds of natural phenomena, the fact that most things end up back in the ocean due to water cycle, different salt levels, water freezing over at some parts -> our environment would be really fragile and we couldn't really do much about it (not saying that the environment ain't fragile in the mainlands) -> situation in mainlands would affects us greatly unless we could influence it back. I don't think we could cultivate other species for our own use, much less build structures. From this stance we would go much more to our roots where we were dependent on our own instincts and the law of nature. Our physiology would be completely different, which would change how we eat/breathe/mate/listen/hear/see etc. Unless we turn out to be some super species who can adapt well in both water and air while not being inconvencied by our qualities in either space. Makes me think of our nervous system as well as thought of process -> would we be able to form into a mixture of a human and "fish" like a merman or be something similar to dolphins who are considered to be one of the most intelligent species yet haven't really evolved physiologically that much. Establishing underwater bases so to say is probably for many reasons, mostly human curiosity mixed with science. We always strive forward to give everything an explanation as well as find out why things are the way they are and how they came to be like that. The tendency to put our mental and physical limits to the test is a rather common thing. I think the main purpose is definitely to find out how our species would adapt in an environment that clearly isn't customed to our evolution necessarily. Finding new chances for our species to thrive and overcome our weaknesses gives better chances of survival in whole as well, not only on this planet but between ourselves as well. Pretty much if one country were to come up with the solution on how to live in space or in deep water, it would give them great advances regarding everybody else, even shifting the power balance. Though accomplishing something like this takes great resources, knowledge and years of planning and experimentation to actually go through. A simpler reasoning is that water is the essence of life in general - it is said that the first organisms have evolved of water and maybe we have some sort of deep connection to our routes? Hahaha. Our research and knowledge of different water bodies is quite new and often times incomplete, it is hard to understand the exact circumstances of a such a versitile environment. Even if we would be able to access all the layers of water, understandng what we would discover with our current limited vision would be a challenge to say the least.

We have the technology to live underwater for a very long time. At the moment the only limiting factor for a submarine is food supplies. Everything else can be scrubbed or generated

short answer no long answer, still no by the time our oceans take the main land humans will be either in space, found a way to build on the sea, or dead logistically i cant see it happening although...... *imagines being able to go 'nico nico niii' and singing pomf pomf in a high pitch voice* but if it means id have even a minute chance get my own big daddy, id donate to the fund i love mr.bubbles...... https://66.media.tumblr.com/427fefd6f4b94b42f00b3a833003b393/tumblr_ofnj6gAwvx1s9f79po2_500.gif

irl sealab 2020 https://thumbs.gfycat.com/CommonFriendlyAngwantibo-size_restricted.gif

As large as the oceans may be and as great as the human population is we are NOT made for those pressures! Perhaps a suit could be constructed...I am thinking of plastics right now. P.S Regarding your nitrogen problem...what other gases would you recommend? Many thanks, WALT

Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? http://i.imgur.com/JJ2QVxK.jpg But in all seriousness I doubt deep sea civilization for humans is next to impossible. Humans just aren't made for those sorts of depths and making specialized structures to make it somewhat possible would be far too costly and difficult to do. We're far, far better off colonizing the moon or Mars if anything.

Walt, Currently, divers doing deep dives use helium instead, and it has been used in the previous sealab trials, so there's not really a reason to not use it, but lab tests might reveal other, better mixtures. And to be fair, if there's enough reason to put a person at the bottom of the sea, there's definitely ways to make a functional enclosure to live in. The big issue over everything else would be maintaining pressure. The actual costs for travel and transport to an underwater living space really is significantly cheaper than going to space, and in general safer; we don't have to ride an explosion to get there, and in fact it is important to take things slow in going down. And again, it is perfectly possible to live at the pressures that exist underwater, as long as you take time to acclimate. It's almost an equal and opposite issue as space life. Honestly, we would probably have similar reasons to live underwater as we do for space: scientific study of how life reacts in high pressures, exploration of sea life, etc. We currently have companies that drill for oil in the ocean (which just seems like an absolutely ludicrous concept if you have any concern for the environment but whatever) so it's not a far stretch to think there are good places to mine on the ocean's floor. Not that I would particularly want that, but it is the most likely reason to put something down there.