Courtesy MARK HARRIS
Once she is sealed and transported to her permanent home beneath the waves of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary early next year, the Vanguard will be world's first new underwater habitat in nearly four decades. Teams of four scientists will live and work on the seabed for a week, entering and leaving the habitat as scuba divers. Their missions could include reef restoration, species research, underwater archaeology, or even astronaut training.
One of the Vanguard modules, unappetizingly named a “wet porch”, has a permanent hole in the floor (also known as a “moon pool”) that does not flood because the Vanguard's air pressure matches the water pressure around it.
It is this pressure that makes the habitat so useful. Divers operating at a maximum working depth of 50 meters usually have to make a long stop on the way back to the surface to avoid decompression sickness. This painful and potentially fatal condition, better known as bending, occurs when a diver ascends too quickly. A traditional 50-meter dive gives scuba divers only a few minutes on the seabed, and they can only do a couple of these dives a day. Because the Vanguard's atmosphere is at the same pressure as water, aquanauts only need to decompress once, at the end of their stay. They could potentially dive for many hours every day.
This could open up all kinds of new science and research. “More time spent on the ocean opens up a world of opportunity, accelerating discovery, inspiration and solutions,” said Kristen Tertoul, Deep's chief operating officer, at Vanguard's opening in Miami in October. “The ocean is the Earth's life support system. It regulates our climate, supports life and holds mysteries that we have only just begun to explore, but 95% of it remains unsolved.”
Sincerely
Underwater habitats are not a new invention. Jacques Cousteau (naturally) built the first one in 1962, although it was the size of an elevator. Larger habitats followed in the 1970s and 80s, reaching a maximum size roughly the size of Vanguard.
But technology has come a long way since then. Vanguard uses a tethered connection to a buoy on top, known as a “surface expression,” that supplies fresh air and water to the habitat. It also houses a diesel generator to power the Starlink internet connection and a waste water tank. Norman Smith, Deep's chief technology officer, says the company has modeled the worst hurricanes Florida expects in the next 20 years and designed the tether to withstand them. Even if the worst happens and communications go down, the Vanguard will have enough air, water and energy reserves to support its crew for at least 72 hours, Deep said.
These figures were obtained from DNV, an independent classification agency that inspects and certifies all types of marine vessels so that they can obtain commercial insurance. Vanguard will be the first underwater habitat to receive a DNV classification. “It means you have to deal with the rules and all the complicated and frustrating things that come with it, but it means that on a basic level it will be safe,” says Patrick Lahey, founder of Triton Submarines, a manufacturer of classified submarines.
JASON KERNER/GETTY IMAGES FOR DEEP
While Deep hopes that Vanguard itself will provide decades of useful scientific activity, its primary function for the company is to test technologies for its planned successor, an advanced modular habitat called Guardian. The Sentinel modules will be six meters wide, twice the diameter of the Vanguard, with wide staircases and single cabins. A small deployment could have a crew of eight, about the same as the International Space Station. The large Sentinel system can accommodate 50 objects at depths of up to 225 meters. Deep claims Sentinel will launch sometime in 2027.
