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Discussion » Questions » Science and Technology » Is it scientifically possible to have a present-day Captain Nemo live in a submarine at the bottom of the Marianas Trench? Fantasy/reality?
RosieG

Is it scientifically possible to have a present-day Captain Nemo live in a submarine at the bottom of the Marianas Trench? Fantasy/reality?

Posted - August 20, 2017
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Responses


  • 6988
    I think it's too deep for a human to go down that far unless you are Jules Verne.  Incidentally, I have some tasty 'Mariana's Peace' tomatoes in my garden.  Maybe I'll make a BLT.
      August 20, 2017 9:05 AM MDT
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  • 3719
    Not so much a scientific but engineering possibility, shown by the fact that the Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench has been explored in a limited manner by manned bathyscaphe; but more to the point would be the necessity or desirability.

    Deep ocean features and life are explored now by remotely-operated submersibles, unmanned vehicles so no humans need be exposed to risks of the craft or its internal systems failing at these great depths.
      September 2, 2017 5:53 PM MDT
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  • 113301
       You are undoubtedly aware of Director/Adventurer James Cameron going down in a bathysphere(?) almost 7 miles in the Marianas Trench. We are polluting earth. We will eventually have to stop doing so or find another place to live. Does outer space living present fewer or more problems than living beneath the sea? Thank you for your thoughtful and helpful reply Durdle. Who knows what the future has in store for us. It is said that "what man can conceive man can achieve". Maybe!   :)
      September 3, 2017 3:50 AM MDT
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  • 3719
    James Cameron's trip, I think in a small submarine rather than a bathyscaphe, was more or less just an adventure for him. The following is a direct quote from Wikipedia, outlining the first, exploratory descent which revealed he surprising fact that there are small animals living on the sea-bed even down there.

    Trieste is a Swiss-designed, Italian-built deep-diving research bathyscaphe, which with its crew of two reached a record maximum depth of about 10,911 metres (35,797 ft), in the deepest known part of the Earth's oceans, the Challenger Deep, in the Mariana Trench near Guam in the Pacific. On 23 January 1960, Jacques Piccard (son of the boat's designer Auguste Piccard) and US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh achieved the goal of Project Nekton.

    Trieste was the first manned vessel to have reached the bottom of the Challenger Deep.[

    (A bathysphere is a different craft. As its name implies it is primarily a spherical body with viewing-ports for the one or two occupants, and is lowered into the sea by winch and cable.  The bathyscaphe is nearer the submarine in that its occupants control the dive and ascent from within it, but it has no propulsion machinery.)

    As for living on the sea-bed (which  has no daylight at all so is totally dark at ocean depths) or elsewhere away in Space go, even if it becomes possible and desirable, we'd still make a mess.





      
      September 3, 2017 4:13 AM MDT
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