A Secret Benefactor Supports the Creation of a ‘Permanent Underwater Community’
Not long ago, a man named Stockton Rush was getting rich by taking wealthy clients underwater in . Rush’s company, Oceangate, made money by courting wealthy clients and taking them on trips to the Titanic wreck site. Rush’s role in the business ended when he and several paying customers , which imploded, possibly due to . The Oceangate disaster cast a shadow over the underwater tourism industry which, prior to the tragic event, was relatively unknown to most Americans. However, many private sector underwater projects continue to move forward, and one of them is called DEEP.
DEEP: Creating a Permanent Underwater Colony
DEEP’s main goal is to establish a permanent underwater colony for research and scientific exploration purposes. The effort has sought to substantially distance itself from companies like Oceangate, which has been accused of and cutting costs in and saving money. In contrast, DEEP with an international accreditation agency, Det Norske Veritas (DNV), to ensure that their underwater vehicles and structures adhere to established and rigorous safety regulations. Instead of focusing on tourism, the organization claims that its primary goal is to create an underwater base from which humans can enhance their understanding of the ocean.
Mike Shackleford, operations director of DEEP, : “The goal is to live in the ocean, forever. To have permanent human settlements in all the world’s oceans.”
The technological innovations needed to achieve this ambitious feat include the creation of new submarines (referred to by the company as “vessels”) and a network of underwater bases (called “sentinels”). DEEP has , where a fairly open and transparent description of its various engineering processes and challenges can be seen.
The company currently has a base of operations in Gloucestershire, a western county in Britain near the border with Wales. There, the company has an 80-meter deep lake where it can test its submersible vehicles and develop its vision of aquatic civilization. The base also features a “training school,” where participating scientists can receive education on how to live and work in underwater environments.
A Mysterious Donor Funds the Initiative
The Guardian reports that DEEP also has a mysterious wealthy donor. The outlet writes that the facility is “funded by a single anonymous private investor with significant resources who wants to invest hundreds of millions of pounds (if not more) in a project that ‘increases understanding of the ocean and its critical role for humanity’.” The publication adds that the DEEP’s management team “remains tight-lipped not only about the amount (they only say it is substantially more than the 100 million pounds being invested in the Deep campus near Chepstow), but also about the identity of the investor. Whoever is behind this, the size of the investment means that an ambitious idea seems to be quickly becoming a reality”.
The Guardian, which recently visited the DEEP base in Gloucestershire, reports on some of the sights and sounds at this unique location, including a structural model designed to mimic the company’s underwater “sentinel” base:
“Standing outside the life-sized underwater house gives an instant sense of the incredible magnitude of the project. The main recreational area is a six-meter diameter hemisphere, and porthole-style windows mean that when the actual structure is submerged, there will be an inescapable sense of being surrounded by the ocean and its inhabitants”.
The Race for Underwater Colonization
The world’s richest people are currently using their immense wealth to fund extreme initiatives, whether it’s Elon Musk’s supposed dream of colonizing Mars or Mark Zuckerberg’s effort to build a digital world where you can while wearing a strange helmet on your head (the “metaverse”). Colonizing the ocean would seem to have many more benefits than either of these two aforementioned projects, but, as in any large-scale enterprise, it must be an effort where safe and efficient exploration is the goal, not profits.
