Richard Branson Announces Virgin Oceanic Submarine
dailytech.com
dailytech.com
Oddly enough the only reason I know anything about this subject is that back in 1997 I was working as a game designer working on a "Tomb Raider"-like game but with the emphasis on the underwater gameplay (I thought Tomb Raider's underwater stuff was a huge missed opportunity, since I found the few underwater bits the most scary and tense).
Researching the back story I looked into what was happening in submarine design (a field that doesn't get a huge amount of coverage, even among geeks) and found out about these underwater "planes" and some stuff the US Navy was experimenting with (i.e. a modified Los Angeles class submarine that could launch armed drone subs, which is a brilliant idea since the most dangerous thing an attack sub can do in combat is launch a torpedo).
Again -- funny how slow progress seems to be in subs compared to everything else.
At the other hand, I wonder why submarine exploration of oceans on earth is not regarded as highly as space exploration. Also while there are so many private start-ups focus on commercial space business, what about deep ocean? I know James Cameron's participation. But anybody else?
Spacecraft? 1.
Fry: How many atmospheres can the ship withstand?
Professor Hubert Farnsworth: Well, it was built for space travel, so anywhere between zero and one.
In fact, would you get the opposote effect along the sides of the craft, where air is moving fast but parallel to the surface?
It doesn't have to withstand a pressure, but it does have to contain a pressure. Kind of opposite-ish.
A traditional submarine is a huge steel cylinder. I thought there was a good reason for that.
Sound from turbulent flow over the surface of the hull is minor and doesn't travel very far (IIRC it's more of a problem for listening than being heard). More significant is the noise generated the formation and popping of bubbles on the surface of the propeller (cavitation) as it moves through the water. But this is a function of depth in addition to speed: to prevent cavitation you can just go deeper. Or more precisely: the deeper you go, the faster you can turn your propeller without cavitating.
If this thing works at all, my guess is it will have to go pretty fast, which would make it kind of dangerous and kind of hard to do exploration with.
The main disadvantage of not having ballast tanks is that on the surface, you won't float that high (I assume you will be slightly positively buoyant, because requiring power to get back to the surface is crazy, and perfectly neutral buoyancy is nearly impossible to achieve). This doesn't matter for a little thing with a tender, but for anything on its own, I'd rather float a little higher. Also, you have to keep moving to keep lift up. That just doesn't make sense for a boat that you spend a lot of time stalking around with as much stealth as possible.
As for "the most dangerous thing an attack sub can do in combat is launch a torpedo", that's just not true. The majority of the missiles launched against Libya this month came from US subs (SSGN). And there are a lot of capabilities that are secret or borderline secret. Check out "Dark Waters" and "Blind Man's Bluff". Also http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/dds.htm
There's a description before this of how 44 psi is 100 feet, and some of the depth gauges showed psi and others feet, and how the standard procedure had been to have the ballast tanks trimmed light, forcing a down angle to maintain depth.
The book continues ``We made several changes in submarines as a result of this incident. For one thing, we don't trim light and run with a down bubble anymore. If the ship takes a down bubble now, except during transitory conditions when the submarine is changing depth, then something is wrong.''
The sub design in question has no ballast tanks. It literally "flies" downward and "sinks" to the surface. No navy subs (at least non-classified subs) do this. Not having ballast tanks is a huge design advantage.
Firing missiles from a Sub against a low tech country with no navy to speak of is hardly a combat situation. In naval combat the only thing subs are really afraid of is other subs and aircraft, and the best way to give up your position is to fire a torpedo.
It IS a great design advantage for non-military subs when your primary goal is to be safe.
The concept is not exactly earth shatteringly new, I've seen concepts of it from navy contractors for decades, the Navy just has no use for one.
For surviving, yes, the only thing can kill a sub is a ship or airplane. How for succesfully completing a mission usually the goal is to remain undetected. That is certainly harder to do.
Or maybe I just admire Richard Branson a little too much.
I'd much rather Zuckerberg took those millions he dumped into New Jersey public schools and built a spaceship that billions of kids around the world could watch fly into space.
I mean, yea Bill Gates malaria is important to solve, but can't you do that AND build a totally sweet space station?
http://www.futurist.com/articles-archive/business-and-econom...
Now we're finally going back! This is so cool!
Somewhat more seriously, this is an interesting turn in events when compared to space policy too. We have conquered the land of Earth. The remaining frontiers are the sea, and space. In both cases our governments appear to have spent themselves, but private investment in space is becoming a serious force to be reckoned with, and now we get this article about a serious foray into the ocean by a private company. It makes me seriously wonder if a new Age of Exploration isn't about to open up again.
This is much more inspiring, though.
Or perhaps it has already happened.
[1] http://www.ussubmarines.com/submarines/luxury.php3 [2] http://www.ussubmarines.com/submarines/phoenix_1000.php3
Sounds like something out of Seaquest (anyone remember that show, lol)