Living Underwater

What would it be like to live underwater? Last week, marine biologist Lloyd Godson got to find out. He was the winner of a competition by Australian Geographic that gave him $40,000 to fulfill his dream of living underwater. He spent almost two weeks alone, enclosed in a 3 meter long box that was submerged in a flooded gravel pit, and resurfaced on Thursday last week.

Copyright Australian Geographic

The yellow capsule Lloyd Godson lived in underwater for almost 2 weeks.

The BioSub, as Godson's temporary home is called, was deemed the first self-sufficient, self-sustaining underwater habitat. He used a bike and solar panels, positioned above ground, to generate his own electricity and Biocoil technology to breathe. This system involves circulating algae watered by his urine through a series of tubes. By shining light on it, photosynthesis could occur, absorbing carbon dioxide from the air and releasing oxygen for him to breathe.

Apart from being a remarkable adventure, the concept of sustainable living is very pertinent in modern times. As the world population increases, people are worried about having enough resources to survive. There have already been initiatives to obtain drinking water from recycled wastewater, a concept that is also of interest for space exploration. It costs about $11, 000 to transport one litre of water into space and scientists have recently developed a system to obtain drinking water from expelled urine, perspiration and used shower water on the International Space Station (ISS).

Although the concept of drinking recycled urine doesn't sound appealing to most people, extensive research has been done and scientists claim that treated wastewater is completely safe and healthy. Taste-wise, it also doesn't prove to be any different from other types of drinking water. Informal surveys have shown that most people can't taste the difference between tap water, recycled water and mineral water.