BioSub underwater environment nearing completion
By Marc Perton 
posted February 17th 2006 3:51PM
posted February 17th 2006 3:51PM
Our initial impression of Australian diver and
scientist Lloyd Godson was that he must have spent a little too much time watching SeaQuest reruns. After all, the guy
is building the BioSub, a self-contained, self-sustaining underwater environment, using such unproven technology as the
LikeAFish artificial gills
to generate air. But after listening to the latest Divester podcast, which
includes a lenghty interview with Godson, we realized he may not be crazy after all, and may actually be onto something
(we'll know for sure in August when he's scheduled to finish the project). Just don't ask us to go down there with him.
why would you use an underwater gill unless the habitat couldn't have a long pipe and air pumping system... seems a bit silly to bother extracting O2 from seawater when a floating air in take pipe would be all you'd need... is the idea that the environment would be seperate from the above sea world?
It depends on how deep this thing is going to go, how much it moves around, etc. Plus this think is a baby step along the way to a permenant sea-floor based operation.
You'll notice it's described as "self-contained, self-sustaining." So yeah, the point is to not have any help from the surface... save the sun I'd guess.
well if there was a pipe leading upto the surface for air what would happen if oh say a hurricane came along and destroyed/blocked/filled the pipe??? sure it would work temporaraly but how would you keep water out and keep fish from jumpingin/clogging the filter. so many things would destroy it it is not worth it...
You guys are missing the bigger point of why not to have a tube... the tube would have to have a huge diameter to allow proper airflow.
Try it yourself. Get a nice 1ft peice of hose and 10ft peice of hose. Go in the pool and breate through the 1ft peice... no problems. Now try going down 10ft using the longer hose... i doubt you'd even be able to get a breathe.
Sure you could use fancy pumps and stuff, but its just more waste. When you look at it, the LikeAFish is a better solution.