Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnMarko
First: Who says it has to be at the deepest portion underwater? I can see something that is "offshore" or in a few hundred feet to a thousand feet of water - the light in a few hundred feet would be just fine - think tropical waters.
Second: The tropical waters would be "warm" enough. Even Arctic locations would be OK - we already have submarines that survive in extreme temperatures.
Third: Submarines and space stations have already solved the the breathable atmosphere part as well as the pressures involved.
|
Continental shelves can be up to about 500 feet (150 meters). If you sunk a supertall (how tall are the buildings in Bioshock anyway?) skyscraper at the outer edge of a continental shelf, only about 30-50 stories would be underwater.
Operators of military submarines do not have to worry about economics.
Spacecraft and space stations only have to worry about the pressure differential between (0 psi outside) and the internal atmosphere (presumably 14 psi). Only a few special submarines with spherical titanium pressure hulls can go down to the abyssal plains of the ocean floor. Military submarines can presumably dive at least a couple of thousand feet (the maximum depth is probably classified).
If you put the Burj Khalifa in water that was just deep enough for its tip to be at the surface of the water (2719 feet deep), the water pressure at ground floor would be about equivalent to 83 times atmospheric pressure at sea level or 1,220 psi (almost 2/3 ton per square inch)!