The UW Station Forum (2007-2012)

forum-logoThe first idea for an undersea station developed in 2007 with the opening of the Underwater Station Forum on UnderwaterPromotion.com. In the following 5 years we collected nearly 250 evaluated contributions on 34 subjects. Without counting all hits of bots and search engines we had more than 200.000 interested readers. The page might have been fatally hacked, but all these contributions were not lost. We distilled them and are still publishing the summaries on CalamarPark.com since 2016. Still it is an open-source project and we ask everyone interested in the subject to contribute his ideas and comments via the comment function under each post.

Plants Clean Air and Water for Indoor Environments

Osmunda Regalis, Christian Fischer [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)],Back in the late ‘80s, NASA was looking for ways to detoxify the air in its space stations. So it conducted a study to determine the most effective plants for filtering the air of toxic agents and converting carbon dioxide to oxygen.See more on GOOD Magazine. Or the corresponding pdf’s:

Image: Osmunda Regalis, taken from Wikimedia, Christian Fischer [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)],

Tektite Habitat on Wikipedia

OAR/National Undersea Research Program (NURP)The Tektite habitat was an underwater laboratory which was the home to divers during Tektite I and II programs. The Tektite program was the first scientists-in-the-sea program sponsored nationally. The habitat capsule was placed in Great Lameshur Bay, Saint John, U.S. Virgin Islands in 1969 and again in 1970. Get all information on Wikipedia.

Diving Bell ‘Medusa’

© CalamarPark.comTogether with the popular MARES Diving Center of IWM of Dieter Heinz in Antalya/Turkey we decided in 2006 to construct a simple diving bell for touristic purposes in a depth of appr. 9m. This diving bell would serve as an advertisement carrier, sales tool and later as a decompression stop bell if successfully positioned. It should last for at least two years being removed during six winter months. As a design we wanted the construction to follow the shape of a jelly fish and to look a bit futuristic. After agreeing and drawing the final design we calculated costs of 1000 € which included the umbrella, the skeleton, the counterweights and the working force. Continue reading “Diving Bell ‘Medusa’”

Nemo’s Garden Project by OCEAN REEF

Portulaca_sativa_01 © Wikimedia Commons, User: BurschikGrowing plants in the undersea station will be very difficult. But the experiment below brought the following question to my mind: If the site of the station would be the Mediterranean, which is a subtropical environment, then the main season would be the summertime. During that period many crops would not grow due to sunlight intensity and heat. The project in the video might be an alternative to use the seawater as a light filter and cooling medium. Would it be worth to investigate?

CO2 Scrubber

Amron International, CO2 ScrubberLonger stays in an underwater station require systems to filter out Carbon Dioxide (CO2) from the air that is exhaled by the aquanauts. These CO2 scrubbers generally consist of a fan that pulls air through a canister filled with Carbon Dioxide (CO2) adsorbent, such as Sodasorb or Sodalime. To get a rough idea about CO2 scrubbers and their prices visit the webpage of AMRON International.

 

Undersea Station: Ballast

Keeping an air filled structure on the sea-floor is more difficult than one would think. Especially during the lowering process major difficulties occurred on previous stations. We can calculate about one kilo of weight (negative buoyancy) per liter of air inside the station (positive buoyancy). The dimensions are huge: imagine a space of 50 m² with a height of 2m, which equals 100 tons of counterweight. At the same time it has to be considered, that these weights have to be lifted again in the end of the mission. For ecological reasons we should find a way to leave the weights on the site and to use a material that would not harm the environment.

Our extensive analysis and proposals are part of the design manual.