NEWS · B2 Level - Part 4

A Startup Plans to Make Humans Sea-Dwellers

Imagine living in a house like this. It looks pretty cool but a bit out of place. And that's because it is.

Level: B2 · 32 sentences

Transcript

  1. Imagine living in a house like this.
  2. It looks pretty cool but a bit out of place. And that's because it is.
  3. It's actually designed to be at the bottom of the sea.
  4. It's built by a startup based in the Southwest UK.
  5. With ambitious plans for humans to live underwater by 2027.
  6. Our motto is to make humans aquatic.
  7. Not just certain humans, all humans.
  8. So we know all this stuff about our solar system and beyond.
  9. But we don't know what's on the bottom of our own oceans.
  10. I want to go live there so I can learn.
  11. Jacques Cousteau's 1962 continental shelf system was one of the first experiments in underwater living environments.
  12. But Deep's ambitions are on another scale.
  13. Their main focus is to facilitate scientific research.
  14. Aiming for people to live and work around 200 meters down for 28 days at a time.
  15. The designs for their larger Sentinel model include bedrooms.
  16. Flushing toilets and even hot showers.
  17. But there's one big question that came straight to my mind.
  18. What if there's a leak?
  19. Yeah, there are four possible ways of leaving the habitat in various types of emergency.
  20. Do you imagine one day towns, villages?
  21. Our sentinel habitat is a module.
  22. Those modules can be bolted together.
  23. So the possibility for subsea villages is absolutely there.
  24. Would people want to live there, do you think?
  25. I would absolutely.
  26. To make the enormous parts required for the system,
  27. the company's developed a technique using welders on robotic arms.
  28. The parts are built one layer of steel at a time.
  29. Every other breath we take is thanks to oxygen produced by the ocean.
  30. The ocean is a major carbon sink.
  31. Our goal is to help understand that.
  32. And all of the other myriad ways that the ocean benefits us all, whether we recognize it or not.