These Companies Are Making Underwater Homes Happen Around the World
It is difficult to differentiate between the world of fantasy and reality these days. Films are rife with life like buildings, explosions and vehicles that run underwater (remember Agent 007’s Aston Martin?) . We have all seen movies where the infamous Lex Luthor tries to convert seawater into land through the use of Kryptonite or seen superheroes like Captain America surviving sixty years under the sea (albeit in a frozen state) only to be rescued by Tony Stark/Ironman in his fancy superhero suit. Oh, how quickly science fiction goes from fiction to fact!
Given the pace of underwater developments across the world, dreams of living underwater may not be far from coming true. If you are willing to cough up enough money and don’t mind being neighbors with a Shark or a Whale, you can actually live under the sea. While that vision is yet to pass, there have been a few artificial deep sea habitats that man has used to dip his toe into the waters.
Some popular underwater home providers are:
H2OME: From the world’s first sea floor homes to luxury undersea resorts and hotels, US submarine structures is the world leader in providing underwater habitats. Founded by Brook Sarson, H2OME are experts in fulfilling your dream of owning an underwater home, a commercial building, floating semi-submersible structures or a sea-floor resort. The destinations provided have luxuries comparable to a 5-star hotel. The home location can either be selected by the clients or are suggested by the company. The designed homes have 3 bedrooms including a master bedroom with en-suite bath, 2 bathrooms and a kitchen with wine-cellar, lounge, library, office space, dining area, a bar and a number of ocean-viewing areas. The rough budget for owning an underwater home designed by the company is 10 million dollars. Read more about the US Submarine structures here.
From the world’s first sea floor homes to luxury undersea resorts and hotels, H2OME is a practical way to become a sea dweller. (Photo Credits: http://www.ussubstructures.com/)
ATLANTICA: The group is building new and advanced undersea habitats using unique and advanced technologies whose purpose is to stay down in the water longer than any other cruise in history. To inaugurate man’s residence underwater, Atlantica has gathered one of the experienced team of aquanauts ever assembled for any undersea mission in history. Atlantica will be designated principally as a scientific community dedicated to intensive marine, biomedical and colonization research. It is intended that Atlantica will be continuously manned and establish humankind's first permanent presence on the seafloor.
It is intended that Atlantica will establish humankind's first permanent presence on the seafloor. (Photo Credit : http://underseacolony.com/)
CONSHELF: Jacques Cousteau, the famous French explorer, conservationist and film maker is the founder of this underwater habitat. It offers fairly comfortable living with gourmet food, air conditioning, fresh water, electricity, fresh air, a telephone, a television supplied from a support ship on the surface. The team also has its own saucer-shaped submarine to explore its deep sea neighborhood.
THE SUB-BIOSPHERE 2: SBS2 is the underwater home of your dreams created by Phil Pauley, a London-based concept designer. Sub-Biosphere 2 is a self-sustainable underwater habitat designed for aquanauts, tourism and oceanographic life sciences as well as long-term human, plant and animal habitation. The SBS2 will have a central supporting biome powering and controlling eight interactive living biomes – each representing a different eco system. According to Pauley, all life-support systems for air, water, food, electricity, and other resources will be sustained by the control of variant atmospheric pressures that occur at such depths. The SBS2 will also act as a seed bank supporting the human, animal and plant life in the biomes.
SBS2 is the underwater home of your dreams created by Phil Pauley. (Photo Credit: i.huffpost.com)
Investments, although pretty heavy, on underwater homes will not go waste as several upcoming projects including artificial islands, underwater sea resorts, floating homes, sea towers, modular floating cities, floating ecopolis are in the pipeline. With the need for conservation and the dreams provided by sci-fi, science is already on the fast track to making our seas liveable!
