Continental Shelf Station Two orConshelf Two was an attempt at creating an environment in which people could live and work on the sea floor. It was the successor toContinental Shelf Station One (Conshelf One).
The alternate designationPrecontinent has also been used to describe the set of projects to build an underwater "village" carried out byJacques-Yves Cousteau and his team. The projects were namedPrecontinent I (Conshelf One),[1]Precontinent II (Conshelf Two)[2][3] andPrecontinent III (Conshelf Three).[4] Each following project was aimed at increasing the depth at which people continuously lived under water.
Precontinent I was constructed offshore fromMarseille, France, in 1962. Twoscuba divers spent two weeks in a small chamber 12 meters deep on theseabed.[3][1]
In 1963, six oceanauts lived 10 metres down in theRed Sea, at Sha’ab Rumi offSudan, in astarfish-shaped house for 30 days.[2] The undersea living experiment also had two other structures, one asubmarinehangar that housed a small, two man submarine referred to as the"diving saucer" for its resemblance to ascience fictionflying saucer, and a smaller "deep cabin" where two oceanauts lived at a depth of 30 metres for a week. The undersea colony was supported with air, water, food, power, and all other essentials of life, from a large support team above. Men on the bottom performed a number of experiments intended to determine the practicality of working on the sea floor and were subjected to continual medical examinations.
Twosupport ships on the surface providedcompressed air and other logistical support to Precontinent II. When the experiment ended, two structures were dismantled and removed. The rest became undersea destinations for recreational divers.[3] The work was funded in part by the Frenchpetrochemical industry, who, along withJacques Cousteau, hoped that such manned colonies could serve as base stations for the future exploitation of the sea.
Conshelf Two is documented in Jacques Cousteau's 1964 documentary filmWorld Without Sun, that wonBest Documentary at the37th Academy Awards.[5][6][7]
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
Such colonies did not find a productive future, however, as Cousteau, after formingConshelf Three a few years later,[4][8][9][10] withdrew his support for such exploitation of the sea and put his efforts toward conservation. It was also found in later years that industrial tasks underwater could be more efficiently performed by undersea robot devices and divers operating from the surface or from smaller lowered structures, made possible by a more advanced understanding of diving physiology and more complex mixtures of breathing gases.[citation needed]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
Media related toConshelf at Wikimedia Commons19°55′44″N37°24′48″E / 19.928783°N 37.4132°E /19.928783; 37.4132
