Today's Article

Ethan Butler, Chief Development Officer, DEEP: Our 2motto is to make humans 3aquatic. Not just certain humans, all humans. 

Phil Short, Research Diving and Training Lead, DEEP: So we know all this stuff about our 4solar system and beyond, but we don't know what's on the bottom of our own oceans. I want to go live there so I can learn. 

CNN Correspondent: Jacques Cousteau's 1962 Continental Shelf System was one of the first 5experiments in underwater living 6environments. But Deep's ambitions are 7on another scale. Their main focus is to 8facilitate scientific research, aiming for people to live and work around 200 meters down for 28 days 9at a time. The designs for their larger Sentinel model include bedrooms, flushing toilets and even hot showers. But there's one big question that 10came straight to my mind. “What if there's a leak?” 

Phil Short: There are four possible ways of leaving the 11habitat in various types of emergency. 

CNN Correspondent: Do you imagine one day towns, villages? 

Phil Short: Our sentinel habitat is a module. Those modules can be 12bolted together so the possibility for 13subsea villages is absolutely there. 

CNN Correspondent: Would people want to live there, do you think? 

Phil Short: I would. Absolutely. 

CNN Correspondent: To make the 14enormous parts required for the system, the company's developed a technique using 15welders on robotic arms. The parts are built one layer of steel at a time. 

Ethan Butler: Every other breath we take is thanks to oxygen produced by the ocean. The ocean is a major carbon sink. Our goal is to help understand that and all of the other 16myriad ways that the ocean benefits us all whether we recognize it or not.