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Jacques Cousteau’s grandson wants to build the ISS of the sea

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Jacques Cousteau’s grandson wants to build the ISS of the sea

#111

Post by joshuaheard »

noetic_techy wrote: post #87

Can I ask the obvious question? What good is a stationary lab in one spot in the ocean? Didn't we do plenty of that in the 70's? If you really want something interesting, build a sub that can park itself in stationary locations or some sort of crawler lab with legs that do minimal impact on the floor and have the ability to reach the deepest parts such as the Mariana Trench. The ocean is huge and parking in one spot…

Good point. If we want to start farming the ocean, an open ocean habitat would be more useful. Especially if it were 60 feet below the surface to avoid weather conditions.

Re: Jacques Cousteau’s grandson wants to build the ISS of the sea

#112

Post by libraryatnight »

robomartin wrote: post #104
sradman wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would prefer if journalist learned to provide something more factual and informative in their stories It is deeper than that (no pun intended); many journalists seem to be lacking the critical thinking skills required to judge whether a story passes a basic sniff test when it comes to science and technology. The Proteus project is not the ISS of the Sea, it is a vanity project. Clickbait from cnet is par for the…

At some level I think we should stop calling it "journalism". The state of journalism in general is pretty sad, not just with regards to science and technology. The amount of effort required to get down to actual information after reading most stories (about anything) is not trivial. In other words, they are now in the mode of writing click-bait pieces for traffic and letting interested readers to the work real journ…

and what little journalism is presented is drowned in a sea of opinion pieces trying to tell me how angry or scared I should be.

Re: Jacques Cousteau’s grandson wants to build the ISS of the sea

#114

Post by cookingrobot »

nicholassmith wrote: post #93
krick wrote: post #38

Not sure how much of a news story it is. I also want to build the ISS of the sea, I always did. Now, I don't have a famous granddad with whom I share my last name, but even if I did it's not like it's enough to build ISS of the sea. The article is written in a very dreamy tone and contains very little substantial information. It firmly assures that "Proteus will be" such and such, as if they are making the finishing…

> "Fabien is raising $135 million" (which, TBH, seems quite a conservative estimate for this project on the one hand, and on the other is a pretty huge investment for something that doesn't have any ROI projections attached) Juicero raised $113M, anything is possible if you get the right people on-board (no pun intended). I agree it seems incredibly conservative for a large scale engineering project though.

But that was a company selling a spectacularly expensive beverage subscription service. There was at least a business plan behind that.

Re: Jacques Cousteau’s grandson wants to build the ISS of the sea

#115

Post by JshWright »

cbsks wrote: post #109
noetic_techy wrote: post #87

Can I ask the obvious question? What good is a stationary lab in one spot in the ocean? Didn't we do plenty of that in the 70's? If you really want something interesting, build a sub that can park itself in stationary locations or some sort of crawler lab with legs that do minimal impact on the floor and have the ability to reach the deepest parts such as the Mariana Trench. The ocean is huge and parking in one spot…

Some science experiments require visiting the same patch of ocean repeatedly. Having access from an underwater lab means that scientists can spend more time doing science and less time traveling to/from the site and decompressing. My uncle is a marine biologist and spent time living in an underwater lab in Florida. Aside from all the diving he was able to do, he said it smelled like a high school locker room and ever…

On the plus side, you don't have to worry about your soda fizzing over...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJiUWBiM8HE

Re: Jacques Cousteau’s grandson wants to build the ISS of the sea

#117

Post by henearkr »

bambax wrote: post #89
henearkr wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was a great oceanographer, engineer, filmmaker, and he opened the eyes of multiple generations on what lies in the oceans and how it's fragile and important to protect it. Isn't that worth a monument? He may have said/done/been bad things at the same time. Do we bury all bronze busts of Wagner?

He blew up coral reefs with dynamite!! By this measure, the Monkey Christ affair "opened the eyes of multiple generations" on the importance of religious paintings.

I don't know what he wanted to achieve and what were his options at the time. Until I know that, I suspend my judgement.

Anyway, he did not make disappear coral as a species, did he?

Please do not confuse nature protection with sentimentalism. There are very serious environmentalist jobs whose description is "destroy all the cats on this island".

Just to precise, there is none of this kind of cruelty in his films. What he transmitted to generations of children (and still does) is respect and fascination of nature in all its beauty and complexity.

I don't know what you saw about sharks, but what I saw as a child was Cousteau's team filming sharks from inside special cages, and even outside the cages in the open, with special canes he designed to keep them at distance without killing them. If he ever had cruelty towards sharks, he had also compassion, and this is the compassion bit that reached me.

Re: Jacques Cousteau’s grandson wants to build the ISS of the sea

#118

Post by barbecue_sauce »

cookingrobot wrote: post #114
nicholassmith wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Fabien is raising $135 million" (which, TBH, seems quite a conservative estimate for this project on the one hand, and on the other is a pretty huge investment for something that doesn't have any ROI projections attached) Juicero raised $113M, anything is possible if you get the right people on-board (no pun intended). I agree it seems incredibly conservative for a large scale engineering project though.

But that was a company selling a spectacularly expensive beverage subscription service. There was at least a business plan behind that.

Is it supposed to be a business? As far as I know, the ISS has no truly quantifiable ROI or business plan, either.

Re: Jacques Cousteau’s grandson wants to build the ISS of the sea

#119

Post by vaidhy »

There are a lot of reasons for having a stationary lab under sea - I have seen a lot of experiments for acceleration of coral growth, bringing corals back to life etc that need long term study and sustained help. However, I am a bit confused as to why this project needs an expensive building as opposed to something like a submarine shell with living quarters (and a moon pool, of course).
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