More seriously, this seems like an elaborate troll of space settlement enthusiasts. It's far simpler and less demanding than long-term settlement in space...and you still look at it and go "WTF would anyone want to do that? Wouldn't it just be easier to send robots down"?
In the grand scheme of things I think humans will colonize all environments, and starting to master water would open up immense amounts of land, so to speak.
But to be clear, these facilities require surface support - they are not self-sustaining. Which is perfectly fine (the ISS is not self sustainable either.)
So this isn't "humanity moving into the sea", it's "humanity learning more about the sea". Which is certainly a worthwhile goal.
Energy production. Food, water, air. Resources. Mining. Industry. The harsh environment (salt water, fouling et al.) Even "gravity" (as in, if you drop something underwater, some of it goes up ...)
Who made any claims of self-sustaining? And in any case, the water cycle means land and sea are intertwined—life on land is not self-sustaining as much as life at sea is not.
No one in the article. But it has come up in the comments of previous articles (and I see in this thread as well.)
Life on land is self sustaining. Not in the "we don't need oceans" sense, but in the "we don't need people living in the oceans" sense. Conversely to live in the ocean we (currently) must have people living on land.
This sound so preposterous as work to create ‘permanent human settlement’ in Mars.
But if given a choice which one to support with my money with zero probability of any returns, I will much rather supporting sea settlement than Mars.
