
Submarine to visit deepest parts of the ocean in Five Deeps Expedition - vinnyglennon
https://www.businessinsider.com/submarine-to-visit-deepest-parts-of-the-ocean-in-five-deeps-expedition-2018-10
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sfifs
> It’s a spot no human has ever explored, and it’s so deep that any
> communications from the submarine will take seven seconds to travel back up.

I found this interesting. Are they going to use sound waves for communication?
Aren't there any electromagnetic wave based communication mechanisms that work
in the ocean or does the depth of water absorb all emails?

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lb1lf
The depth a RF signal reliably penetrates to in water is proportional to its
wavelength.

Hence the ELF sites used to communicate with submarines - we're talking EM
radiation at a frequency of a few tens of hertz.

These transmitter sites are huge - not to mention the power requirements,
which is easily in the MW range - so they could only be used to communicate
from shore to submersible. Return comms would have to be by acoustic means,
due to size and power constraints in the submersible.

Also, the bandwidth of ELF systems is very low - think several seconds, if not
minutes per bit - the bandwidth of an acoustic system is orders of magnitude
higher.

Edit: I had bungled the first paragraph. My apologies.

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caf
ITYM "proportional", not "inversely proportional". The ELF transmissions have
very _long_ wavelengths.

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lb1lf
-You are right; I was thinking 'frequency' but writing 'wavelength'. Thank you!

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lb1lf
While I have to admit I am dubious of the scientific value of sending humans
down into the abyss, I'll keep an eye out for news on their progress; there's
no denying that most of the world's deep oceans are pretty much blank spots.

Also, while I think an AUV or ROV could accomplish as much as a manned
submersible, I am envious as [ __ __] of the people who get to go down there!
Where do I sign up?!?

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Insanity
Really? In my mind it sounds way too scary to do so!

But for some reason I would like space travel rather as to me it sounds safer
but I can't back that up.

Going towards lesser extremes, I am also fine with flying but really dislike
being on boats. Probably just an irrational tjinh I though.

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booleandilemma
Could it be that our species has had time to develop an instinctual fear of
deep water that we haven’t had the chance to develop for space travel?

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throwaway5752
Your assumption that the species isn't afraid of space travel is invalid.

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yawz
I’m pretty sure comfort is not the top design criterion when building a
machine that can take multiple humans miles deep, but I’d love to see the
inside of it. I imagine even a bathroom break could be challenging.

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kej
There's some detail on the interior of the sub on their site [1]; note the
slider on the "Key Features" photograph that shows you the inside when the
slider is moved to the left.

[1]
[https://fivedeeps.com/home/technology/sub/](https://fivedeeps.com/home/technology/sub/)

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0xcafecafe
I wonder if they will find more ecosystems independent of the sun. Or may be a
good footage of the giant or collosal squids. Or something we can't even
fathom currently. This is almost akin to deep space exploration for aliens
except that here we are guaranteed to find some...

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f4stjack
"Cthulhu likes that"

