Future Innovations in Scuba Gear?!

[MrConclusion]

OK, so the problem with ultra-light and/or ultra-high-pressure tanks is weight shift and buoyancy. Well then...

How about a very light, high pressure tank, designed to be neutral when filled. (Something designed for 4500 to 7500 psi, for example.) The trick would be that the "bottom" of the tank is designed as a piston. The tank body becomes variable volume if you can drive the piston up or down.

As the diver uses air, the tank pressure isn't allowed to drop. Rather, the piston rises, reducing tank volume and maintaining pressure. If you allow water to enter the area below the piston, the weight shift would be minimal as air is consumed. The position of the piston would indicate how much air is left, father than using an SPG.

In fact, the tank itself could be used as a BCD by either compressing or relaxing the piston.

 

[bp_968]

Here is another interesting idea, though hookah related.

http://ssuba.com/

Ben

 

[PurpleRonald]

1) A submersible jet ski; park it on the bottom - a two seater... Ski to the site, press a button, it submerges and has an underwater speed of 1 to 4 kts... ; )
Yes! John Deere would make it! They'd be GREEN. I can see the ad campaign:
'Nothing Runs - or Dives - like a Wet Deere! Yes!

2)I have used portable translators ... There ought to be one that could be made for underwater use that allows one to press a button for a few key audible phrases such as:
Come here. Help me breath. Stop. Look at the Fish... In fact I think we could come up with about 20 phrases that could cover most situations that could be heard within a few feet of your buddy. Also a 'communicator' worn on the wrist that incorporated a red light , a yellow light, and a green light ie. red light means 'stop', green light means 'come here' and yellow light means 'look at whatever'.

3)The development of underwater resorts...ie. more underwater stations ie. imagine underwater phone/emergency/recompression stations ie. IMAGINE BEGINNING A DIVE IN KEY LARGO AND TRAVELING ALL THE WAY TO KEY WEST ALMOST ENTIRELY UNDERWATER...ie DIVE SAFARIS THAT EXTEND FOR SEVERAL MILES OF EXPLORATION...ie. TRAVEL THE ENTIRE GULF STREAM...

4)An underwater ATV...ie. think negative buoyancy and traveling across the long flat sandy wilderness.

5)Camouflaged wetsuits ie. the military has done some amazing things with camouflage ie. one is a mirror like surface that makes a person practically invisible in that it sorta projests the surrounding landscape onto the mirroe-like suit. I am trying to think of a dive suit that makes a diver practically 'invisible.' However, Why?

6)Aquaculture ie. a geater interest in regard to underwater ecology...and the mapping of reefs. For example, many divers seem to visit reefs as incidental visitors not realizing that many of the fish actually live there ie. the same shark might travel up and down the same reef for years? If reefs were mapped in greater detail and studied before each dive it might create an entirely 'new quality' of experience.
What product? MORE AND BETTER MAPS OF REEFS AND PARTICULAR DIVE SITES...that could be taken with the diver and checked throughout the dive...

 

[bp_968]

6)Aquaculture ie. a geater interest in regard to underwater ecology...and the mapping of reefs. For example, many divers seem to visit reefs as incidental visitors not realizing that many of the fish actually live there ie. the same shark might travel up and down the same reef for years? If reefs were mapped in greater detail and studied before each dive it might create an entirely 'new quality' of experience.
What product? MORE AND BETTER MAPS OF REEFS AND PARTICULAR DIVE SITES...that could be taken with the diver and checked throughout the dive...

You mention aquaculture. I used to have a salt-water aquarium and was impressed with the huge conservation effort going on with ecologically minded "reefers". All of my corals and all but one of my fish was captive-grown / captive born. The scientific community is learn alot about coral growth / healing / and hardiness in the aquarium world. A couple of companies also build artifical reefs in florida, grown corals and coraline algae on them and then sell that to the aquarium indistry. I hope they keep at it so someday they can be totally self sufficent and never need to import any marine life again.

Ben

 

[RTRski]

4)An underwater ATV...ie. think negative buoyancy and traveling across the long flat sandy wilderness.
..

Please, no, never, I pray.

Considering the way ATVs have ruined most of the forest trails I used to love, I'd hate to see what would happen to the popular dive sites. YOU may have intended it only for the 'flat sandy wilderness' but you know some asshat's just gonna have to do 'wheelies' off the reef, or try to thread a swimthrough...

 

[fmw625]

I'd perfer things that make it safer to dive. Guess I have a Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) frame of mind.

 

[tlawler]

Not really a futuristic innovation, but a few years ago I saw an article about a compressed air driven DPV (I think it may have been Popular Science). It used air from your tank and you breathed the exhaust, not wasting any air. Does anyone else remember anything along this line?

 

[tlawler]

Please, no, never, I pray.

Considering the way ATVs have ruined most of the forest trails I used to love, I'd hate to see what would happen to the popular dive sites. YOU may have intended it only for the 'flat sandy wilderness' but you know some asshat's just gonna have to do 'wheelies' off the reef, or try to thread a swimthrough...

Man, I totally hear ya there. My fave boyhood haunt, the Ocala National Forest, is overrun with the damn things. I take my kids camping up there a few times a year still, and as hikers, we are treated as interlopers on their turf.