Construction of the SeaOrbiter underwater research station

Construction of the first remarkable underwater research station will begin as early as spring 2014. SeaOrbiter is a project by French scientists that aims to create a floating, underwater ocean laboratory. A campaign has been launched to fund and finalise the final part of the design of this state-of-the-art vessel.

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SeaOrbiter – often compared to the USS Enterprise spacecraft – is set to be the most phenomenal scientific investment of the 21st century and a new generation of vessel exploring underwater worlds. Designed by French engineer Jacque Roguerie, the facility will be equipped with laboratories, living quarters, underwater vehicles, divers’ locks and decompression chambers. Some of the rooms will function as diving bells, allowing divers to work underwater for days without decompression.

In fact, SeaOrbiter will only be half-submerged, but its underwater part is to be as much as a six-storey complex. The 52-metre tall vertical spacecraft-like structure will drift with sea currents, but its two engines will allow for possible course correction. Its above-water part will also be equipped with wind turbines. All this is to emphasise the ship’s ecological character.

The project is supported by the Floating Oceanographic Laboratory, which is headed up, among others, by the late Jacques Piccard, one of the three men who managed to descend to the deepest point on Earth. However, the French architects cannot complain about the support of the world’s top experts from NASA, NOAA, University of Hawaii, Scripps Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the Smithsonian Institution and the National Group, among others.

SeaOrbiter is to provide accommodation for a crew of 18-20 researchers who, thanks to the ship’s design, will be able to spend 24 hours a day underwater. Only the navigation equipment, communication equipment and the viewing platform will remain on the surface of the vehicle. Security systems will be similar to those used on space stations.

The cost of this unusual boat is more than $52 million, which is why its construction has been delayed for more than ten years. Lack of sufficient funds has been an effective roadblock to the project and all hope that SeaOrbiter will actually be built has been lost. However, everything indicates that the construction of this unique boat will begin, and then the depths of the oceans will no longer hold any secrets for us. The first underwater missions are planned for 2016 in the Mediterranean Sea.

Source: seaorbiter.com