A new subsea habitat for humans just dropped (literally), all the way to the ocean floor. The habitat is called Vanguard, and it’s designed by a company named Deep. This habitat houses up to four people for stays of a week or more without surfacing.
Living under pressure at depth for extended periods is already widely used in something called “saturation diving,” where divers’ bodies become fully saturated with the gas mix they’re breathing and remain under pressure between dives, eliminating the need for repeated ascents to equalize. These time-consuming ascents often involve safety stops that can take longer than the dive itself, especially at great depths.
The habitat includes a living area with four beds, a food prep station and a meal table with an ocean view. Next to that is a bathroom-and-workstation combo, and beyond that is the dive center, which includes a moon pool for entering and exiting the water.
DEEPVanguard is a small-scale proof of concept for a much bigger vision. Deep plans to build the equivalent of the International Space Station for the ocean: A place where humans can live, study and work long-term in an inhospitable environment.
The mechanism for this large-scale ocean living is called Sentinel: a larger, modular undersea habitat with individual sleeping quarters for added comfort during long stays.
But Sentinel is still a ways away. For now, the Deep team is gearing up to welcome the first aquanauts to Vanguard and embark on a series of studies in ocean life, reef restoration, human subsea habitation and much more. Vanguard may even prove useful for helping astronauts train for life in space. To put a slight twist on a popular phrase: the sea’s the limit.
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