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Comment by rgmerk | Hacker News Reader

Somebody watched Octonauts as a kid...

More seriously, this seems like an elaborate troll of space settlement enthusiasts. It's far simpler and less demanding than long-term settlement in space...and you still look at it and go "WTF would anyone want to do that? Wouldn't it just be easier to send robots down"?

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Haha. People just have different drives. I'm definitely a space enthusiast, but also see this as an awesome idea.

In the grand scheme of things I think humans will colonize all environments, and starting to master water would open up immense amounts of land, so to speak.

Submerged habitats are very unlikely to be a thing. Though humans have lived ON water for a long time in large numbers. There are many people living in boats and barges, veritable citys in south asia, and other areas. Submerged structures will suffer from hugely expensive engineering and construction costs, and you dont have to go very deep at all, before the pressure differential is greater than in space. Salt, corrosion, maintenance, wildly complicated and expensive.Air handling will be very loud, and prone to failures, water and waste, will also be extra complicated, leaks will be profoundly unpleasant.If we are talking about high end resort or theme hotels, then , whatever. On the other hand Mega floating and semi submerged structures can be built from any and all materials, and the engineering is strait forward. Still there is a vast amount of barren and waste land ,that can be utilised at much less effort, so none of it makes sense, except situationaly.... Singapor, and such.

For me, asteroid belt settlement seems the most useful/reasonable. The motivation is simply that there is so much space for expansion. Space colonization is really just about humans keeping access to exponential population growth. Antarctic and deep sea settlement don't make sense because they offer relatively limited growth potential in comparison. They do make sense as practice/training for the next few thousand years of the average human condition.

The argument of "just go send a robot", seems antithetical to life. The point of underwater settlements, looks to be an accomplishment for mankind, stretching the boundaries of what's possible. It's not that robots can't be used, but maybe more like how far can humans go.

Or that one Futurama episode, "I, roommate"

https://theinfosphere.org/I,_Roommate

"Sure, it ain't one of them la-de-da above-ground places,

but if you like dank... forget about it."

Or may be played Bioshock or Aquanox.

Would you kindly come settle in Rapture?

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