Well, it depends on what problems you're able to solve with Handwavium and what you leave to hardtech.
Life Support: Given that we've assumed this can be 'waved easily, not an issue.
Pressure Hull: This is the biggy. Even in the vacuum of space you're only talking the difference between 0 and 1 atmosphere of pressure. That is miniscule compared to the structure needed for working at any noticeable depth. Rule of thumb is that ocean pressure goes up by 1 atmosphere every 33 feet, so by the time you hit any serious depth you're talking about literally hundreds of times the pressure differential. Most submarines and such that go down that low have to use increased atmospheric pressure on the inside in order to help compensate and reinforce the external structure. (Jacques Cousteau's famous bathyscaphe, for example, did not use air for bouyancy, but oil, because of its incompressibility under the immense pressures at the depths he traveled to).
And yes, I do see a large market for diamondoid construction material there - it's going to need something massively tough to take that kind of pressure without collapsing.
Humans can handle up to 3 or 4 atmospheres of pressure with moderate discomfort - beyond that you're into the realm of dives that are considered very difficult and dangerous, today.
Actually living in a domed city at the bottom of the sea... at any significant depth, you're going to have to make a choice. Either keep the city itself at normalish pressure (which requires massive investment in structural integrity and adds immense complications to any work involving going outside the dome, because you're going to need to deal with decompression) or turn it into one big saturation dive, which has its own oddball effects and makes returning to the surface for any reason a lengthy, dangerous process.
Do you know anyone who's done any serious diving? If so, talk to them. Colonizing the sea-floor is an interesting endeavor, but a far more difficult one - even with all we can do with handwavium - than colonizing space.--
"I give you the beautiful... the talented... the tirelessly atomic-powered...
R!
DOROTHY!
WAYNERIGHT!
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
Life Support: Given that we've assumed this can be 'waved easily, not an issue.
Pressure Hull: This is the biggy. Even in the vacuum of space you're only talking the difference between 0 and 1 atmosphere of pressure. That is miniscule compared to the structure needed for working at any noticeable depth. Rule of thumb is that ocean pressure goes up by 1 atmosphere every 33 feet, so by the time you hit any serious depth you're talking about literally hundreds of times the pressure differential. Most submarines and such that go down that low have to use increased atmospheric pressure on the inside in order to help compensate and reinforce the external structure. (Jacques Cousteau's famous bathyscaphe, for example, did not use air for bouyancy, but oil, because of its incompressibility under the immense pressures at the depths he traveled to).
And yes, I do see a large market for diamondoid construction material there - it's going to need something massively tough to take that kind of pressure without collapsing.
Humans can handle up to 3 or 4 atmospheres of pressure with moderate discomfort - beyond that you're into the realm of dives that are considered very difficult and dangerous, today.
Actually living in a domed city at the bottom of the sea... at any significant depth, you're going to have to make a choice. Either keep the city itself at normalish pressure (which requires massive investment in structural integrity and adds immense complications to any work involving going outside the dome, because you're going to need to deal with decompression) or turn it into one big saturation dive, which has its own oddball effects and makes returning to the surface for any reason a lengthy, dangerous process.
Do you know anyone who's done any serious diving? If so, talk to them. Colonizing the sea-floor is an interesting endeavor, but a far more difficult one - even with all we can do with handwavium - than colonizing space.--
"I give you the beautiful... the talented... the tirelessly atomic-powered...
R!
DOROTHY!
WAYNERIGHT!
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.