Some countries pump out aircraft carriers to project power across the globe; others build research megastructures to plumb the ocean depths.
China’s Shanghai Jiao Tong University recently announced construction on a major infrastructure project: the largest semi-submersible research platform ever attempted.
Called the Deep-Sea All-Weather Resident Floating Research Facility, or “Open-Sea Floating Island” for short, the names just about say it all. Designed to be 30 stories high in the style of an offshore oil rig, the platform will be closer to a “floating island in the open sea” than a traditional research ship, China’s CCTV reports.
The ship is slated to feature six major research facilities, including a marine disaster lab, as well as installations to study marine meteorology and heavy ocean equipment. Its quarters are designed to accommodate a staff of 238 people, including researchers who will be able to conduct experiments at a maximum depth of 10,000 meters.
Construction on the floating research vessel is set to finish by 2030. When it deploys, the behemoth facility will have a deck area the size of two football fields, with a moon pool big enough to fit a “full grown blue whale.”
The People’s Republic already boasts the largest fleet of civilian research vessels, earning criticism from western China hawks.
“The nation has various types of marine research facilities, such as deep-sea test pools, research vessels, and deep-sea submersibles,” Xiao Longfei, the project’s chief engineer, told CCTV.
“However, there is a lack of research facilities that can both navigate quickly and operate for extended periods in a single mission area,” he added. “By integrating the characteristics of semi-submersible platforms and research vessels used in the marine oil and gas sector, a completely new concept of a semi-submersible research platform has been formed.”
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