We’ve been going to space and landed on the moon a couple times I think, since the sixties but we are barely able to explore the deepest part of the ocean. What’s this about?
In: Engineering
14 pounds per square inch. That’s all the pressure a space craft has to withstand of static pressure to keep a bubble of air at normal sea level pressure. Relatively speaking, a space craft with aluminum as thin as a soda can could do that. It’s low enough that you could probably inflate strong plastic, and keep someone alive in space without it blowing up. In a vacuum, there isn’t much difference in pressure from being on the surface, just that 14psi.
But at the bottom of an abyss, you could have a mile or more of ocean sitting on top of a submersible. That is a lot of pressure, a lot more than 14PSI difference in pressure between inside and outside. And there is only so much reinforcement you can do to make it stronger without making it so heavy that it sinks like a rock. A submersible must be neutrally buoyant in order to move around under water. If you make it heavier, you must make it have a larger volume to off set that weight to keep it buoyant. But making it larger exponentially increases the stress on the submersible which requires even more reinforcement etc. So they have to be very small, and light enough to float.
That being said, we have had manned submersibles travel to the deepest parts of the ocean. It’s expensive, incredibly dangerous, and because of the amount of time spent decompressing, and the need to spend several hours ascending and descending, the weather needs to be very clear or it can get dangerous quickly.
With space flight all of the danger is at take off an the landing. In a submersible it’s all danger, all the time.
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