Phil Nuytten in the warehouse at Nuytco Research Ltd., the undersea technology and research company he founded in Vancouver. He's standing next to his patented Atmospheric Diving Suit, for which he is known around the world. Image: Jackie Wong
Nuytco's DeepWorker submersibles sell for approximately $1 million. They're single-person vehicles that can take pilots up to 3,000 feet below the ocean's surface. Image: Jackie Wong
The Dual DeepWorker, pictured here, is a two-passenger submersible priced at around $1.5 million. Luxury customers purchase them for use alongside their yachts. Image: Jackie Wong
All of it, he added, is in service of a dream he hopes to see to fruition in his lifetime. "I'm a blacksmith, in a sense," he said. "My job is to build armour to take us outside of our designed limitations." We humans are designed to breathe 20 percent oxygen, and live at a pressure of 14.7 pounds per square inch, which is conveniently what's found at sea level."You can't go down to the bottom of the ocean and survive," Nuytten said. "The pressure is far too great." (At 8,000 feet below, it would be comparable to having an elephant standing on your toenail—but across your entire body.) "So here we are, stuck at sea level, Nuytten continued. "But we're not!" At least, not if he ultimately has his way."What this is all in aid of—and it's a very ambitious end goal—is I want to build an underwater habitat," he said. The habitat would be different than the so-called "wet habs" of the 1960s that Jack Cousteau built, he explained. Unlike those habitats, where people lived for a few weeks or one month at a time, Nuytten's habitat would be a long-term living situation. It would maintain the same pressure as what humans are accustomed to living in at sea level. "I want to build habitats that are not exposed to pressure, even though they may be 3,000 feet down," Nuytten said.His vision is to establish an undersea habitat, potentially off the coast of Vancouver
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Vent Base Alpha. illustration by Ken Brown, Courtesy of Phil Nuytten