Fabien Cousteau has a vision for how humans can live and work in the ocean He imagines that long-term stays under the waves could be enabled through the construction of underwater habitats, which would look and feel like houses, as opposed to just sealed, submarine-like bubbles
These habitats would have a galley, kitchen, workspace, and sleeping quarters, he describes. And of course, there would be windows, or viewports, to the outside world, and a front door in the form of a moon pool that will actually be on the bottom of the house. This would allow easy access into and out of the facility
The project, called Proteus, would be a marine analog to the International Space Station, and would primarily accommodate aquanauts, the equivalent of an astronaut in the ocean. It’s an idea that has been bubbling for some time now. But it could start taking shape relatively soon. Proteus Ocean Group, a private company which would operate and run Proteus, has recently signed an engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract with a firm that has expertise in creating hyperbaric and pressure vessels in the ocean environment. Much of what Proteus is doing in terms of the technology they’re exploring is similar to space technology.
The first unit will be installed off of Curacao, an island north of Venezuela, in a marine protected area around 60 feet deep. The team is looking into additional locations across Europe and the US for future stations— their goal is to create a network of them. They’ve already completed 3D mapping of the seafloor around the general area where Proteus will be located.
“We did our 3D benthic mapping, which was not a small feat during COVID. We already shared the maps with Carmabi and the government of Curacao,” Cousteau, the grandson of ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau, says. They will start their front-end engineering design phase in April and pre-construct the parts either at the end of 2022 or in early 2023. If everything goes as scheduled, Proteus, along with a connected deeper water satellite station, is expected to be installed underwater by the end of 2025. A land-based mission control station will be built in parallel.
To appreciate how a facility like this could be helpful for the researchers that might one day live there, it helps to understand what separates it from traditional ocean technology, like a sub. “It’s very different from a submarine. A submarine is a bubble. Proteus and the deeper water station will not technically be pressure vessels,” Cousteau says. “The ambient pressure inside will be the same as the pressure outside. A pressure vessel is when you have a differential in pressure inside versus outside.”
He compares it to taking a cup, inverting it, and pushing it down into water. An air bubble would form inside, and water doesn’t go into the bubble because the pressures inside and outside the cup are at equilibrium. This would be useful for the explorers who live there because they don’t need to adjust and readjust to differing pressures inside and outside Proteus when leaving it to SCUBA dive.
What Proteus proposes is not a new idea. In fact, Cousteau’s grandfather was one of the early pioneers of underwater habitats in the 1960s. The History of Diving Museum estimates that over 60 seafloor habitats have been constructed, although most have been abandoned or have fallen to disrepair. The last standing one is Aquarius, located in the Florida Keys at a depth of 60 feet, which is still used to train astronauts and host research missions. In 2014, Fabien Cousteau stayed for 31 days at the reef base station, and shared an inside view of life under the waves with PopSci.
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