Last week, National Geographic invited The Seasteading Institute to Galveston, Texas to shoot a documentary aboard a dry-docked oil rig. It will be a segment in a six-part series on the oceans. Director of Engineering George Petrie and Board of Engineering Advisor Greg Castleman spoke about how an oil rig could be refurbished as a residential and business seastead, and Senior Director Randy Hencken and I talked about the need to provide a new frontier for governments and a new space for innovation. The show is hosted by famed marine archeologist Robert Ballard (discoverer of the wrecks of the Titanic, the Bismarck and the Yorktown – check out his TED talk). As he points out, we have better maps of Mars than we do of the bottom of the ocean. He shared with us his vision of how to start long-term habitation on the oceans, starting with single-family aquaculture seasteads, perhaps farming with the techniques pioneered by the Valella Project in structures similar to the RP FLIP. The documentary will be broadcast next year.
Did any one tell Ballard that we’ve been doing this for a few decades and have our own flip ship designs that are a few years old. Sea farming technology based on 1970’s research. My floatig ponds work is not that new. i look forward to the Documentry but suspect it will take two years to get to Australian cable.
PS. the Velalla Project link is a dud.
For everyone’s information I was involved with the original Oceania Project in a small way. I’m also in several space organisations. And I have a Degree in sustainable Development, sustainable agriculture and renewable energy,water and sewerage.