How do 21st century C.E. submersibles enter an underwater dome swiftly and safely?
Imagine there is a micro-city built on the ocean floor in the pacific ocean covered with a durable dome with a 1 mile radius to keep water out. At this moment let us assume that the dome holds up beautifully thanks to the super-tough reinforced concrete developed to stand up to TSAR bombardment.
The problem is: how do submersibles get in and out of this dome city? Air pressure inside dome is 1 atm and the water pressure is approximately 1000 times stronger.
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/93890. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
Have you tried this thing as a kid, when you are swimming in a pool or at a lake, where you take a small bucket, turn it upside down, and competed for who could push it down the farthest? It is hard, since the bucket will hold air inside itself, which wants to float. However, it is possible to force it under and hold it down. The air does not come out of the bucket unless you flip the bucket around.
Your underwater bio-dome is basically a giant semi-spherical bucket. Its structure gives it weight, plus it requires a handful of ultra-strong cables anchoring it to the sea floor, probably all the way to bed rock. The air may need to scrubbed (as on the ISS) and replenished from time to time but it will not escape. Here is a crude doodle that I made in paint:
My doodle omits the "city" part, but I would expect buildings could either be on stilts from the ocean floor, or suspended from the top of the dome, or both.
Now that we see this, the answer to your question is almost trivial. The submersibles enter and exit from underneath.
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/93907. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
0 comment threads
0 comment threads