Speaking to Bored Panda from beneath the waves, the Hemingway-esque industrialist and adventurer, familiarly known as Rudy, joined his co-founder and CEO Grant Romundt to reveal the challenges of spending more than three months underwater—and how doing so will help with an unexpected goal:space travel.
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Ocean Builders co-founder and chief engineer Rüdiger Koch has spent over 100 days in an underwater room to prove the feasibility of his company’s Deepwater SeaPods, which will form floating cities
Image credits:Grant Romundt from Ocean Builders
Of course, the immediate purpose of the record attempt was to prove the feasibility of the SeaPodDeepwater Model. Unlike the standardSeaPods, which are designed for depths around 13 feet (four meters), the Deepwater Model is a floating human habitat suitable for the open ocean and capable of handling large swells.
Indeed, stability is one of the SeaPod’s main selling points. Even the current shallow-water models don’t rock in the waves like a boat. “A lot of times you don’t even feel the movement on my SeaPod,” Grant assured us.
Ocean Builders already commercially produce shallow-water SeaPods—floating houses with around 830 square feet of living space—in Linton Bay, Panama
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“I was actually expecting some stuff to show up,” he confided in us. “At the beginning we had issues with electricity. I was using too much electricity, a few other things. Nothing serious.”
Ocean Builders moved to Panama after the Thai government destroyed their first prototype off the coast of Phuket in 2019
Image credits:Ocean Builders
After the Thai governmentdestroyedtheir first prototype off the coast of Phuket, Ocean Builders gained notoriety within the Seasteading movement, drawing the attention of libertarians, anarchists, and other activists looking for a way to escape government authority. However, Grant confided that SeaPods attract a wide range of customers.
“There’s a lot of profiles because we appeal to many different kinds of markets like digital nomads, crypto enthusiasts, the yachties that love being on the water, but maybe want something more like a home now because they’ve been on a boat for so long. And then there’s creative people like musicians and artists that want some place that’s really inspiring to work.”
In Grant’s case, he’d long felt the drive to live on the water. Before founding Ocean Builders, he lived in a floating home in a marina in Toronto. The lifestyle speaks to him on a spiritual level.
SeaPods appeal to a variety of customers, from those looking to escape government authority to artists and musicians looking for an inspiring environment
With the Deepwater Model, the inventor sees himself as one step closer to creating floating cities, which he insists will be even more important in the future due to rising sea levels. Much of his time—while setting the record—has been devoted to bringing about this future. For example, he’s been working on developing an AI that could control mobile robots capable of maintaining and repairing the SeaPods so that the residents don’t need any specialized technical expertise.
“We will be able to provide robots that can actually walk about the house like bipedal robots,” he said. He hopes to have this AI system up in a couple of years.
For Rüdiger Koch, SeaPods are just a stepping stone to space travel—floating cities are necessary to build the futuristic launch loop
Image credits:Grant Romundt from Ocean Builders (Render Image)
However, even floating cities aren’t Rudy’s end goal. His sights are set on the stars. An aerospace engineer, he only came to co-found Ocean Builders due to his interest in thelaunch loop, a means of reaching space without rockets. Imagine a giant hula hoop standing upright on the surface of the Earth with the top part in space. Inside the hoop, a maglev train goes around and around at such blistering speeds that, when timed correctly, the centrifugal force can fling a payload into space.
The launch loop is potentially cheaper than rockets since it doesn’t require rocket fuel, and it’s environmentally friendlier for the same reason. Moreover, according to Rudy, it doesn’t require any technology that isn’t already available. It’s merely a question of engineering, which is where he comes in.
Nevertheless, for the immediate future, the visionary remains under the sea. He’s extended his stay to 150 days.Lei RV
Karina Babenok
Renan Duarte
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