Uploaded July 2019 | Updated September 2026, 8 hours ago

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From the reasons we would do it, to what life would be like under the sea, join us as we explore the question of, "What if we colonize the oceans?"
7. The Oceans Deep
Before asking the question of "What if?" we need to ask the question of, "Why would we?" Why would we go and leave our places above the waves to go live either on top of them, or beneath them? Isn't that too much of a risk? Well, as in all things, it depends on your perspective of the matter.
The idea of ocean colonization is not a new thing. In fact, it's been something that has been theorized and debated for many years. And one of the most basic reasons for why we would consider it is...water is pretty much everywhere.
Our world is made of about 71% water. Which means that the part of the world that humanity lives on is about 29%. But to be honest, it's a bit lower than that. Because various parts of the United States, Russia, China, many countries in Africa, and more have areas that honestly aren't inhabited by that many humans. We're more clumped together than anything else.
Which brings us to why we would have colonies underwater, there would be a lot of space Much more than we have above the waters. Regardless of the how (and don't worry, I'll get to that), if we were to put colonies either above or below the oceans or seas surface, we could theoretically house a lot of people and seriously help the overpopulation problem that the Earth is currently facing on land.
The Earth has almost 8 billion people on it, and it's growing in size every year, that's almost too much for our planet's lands to hold. So we need to think of an option to help maintain the population. Having colonies under the sea might just be the solution that we are looking for. And should we be able to go to all the oceans of the world and put colonies there? That would solve a lot of problems. Not to mention it would be easier than other solutions floating around.
6. Space vs. Water
When you hear the word "colonization" in the modern day, you either think of past history (like the colonization of America and other nations) or you think about the prospect of space colonization. Depending on who you talk to, you be told to believe that us colonizing a place like Mars is "just a matter of time". And technically speaking...it is. We have made strides to go and colonize Mars, including finding that there is water on the Red Planet. But as in any venture, there are a lot of risks with doing a space mission of this nature, and when you compare colonization of Mars to colonization of the oceans of Earth...one definitely seems easier.
First and foremost, it's easier to test. If you want to test something in space, you have to launch it up there via a probe or rocket, and that's not cheap. In contrast, humanity has plenty of deep sea vehicles that are already made and can be used right now to do tests on underwater colonies and such.
Second, if something goes wrong in space? The person up there basically has no help outside of mission control in their ear. In the ocean? Depending on how deep you are, and the size of the team with you, help is at most only minutes away. That's a big difference.
Finally, to colonize space, we'd have to do a large and expensive process to not just get to Mars, but to make sure the colony is able to sustain itself via sending supplies to them. In contrast, sending people and supplies to an underwater colony or a floating colony on the ocean is relatively easy, and somewhat cheap.
Even some people from NASA are hesitant to say that colonizing space is in our immediate future, such as Catharine Conley, NASA's planetary protection officer, she notes that colonizing the oceans is way easier than colonizing a planet like Mars:
"But if the idea is to construct a self-sustaining environment where humans can persist indefinitely with only modest help from Earth ... then I'd say this is very far in the future, if it's possible at all," she said. She went on to make a thought-provoking comparison: "We haven't bothered to colonize areas underwater on Earth yet. It's far more challenging to colonize a place where there's hardly any atmosphere at all."
So as you can see, colonizing the oceans isn't just a good option, it's actually one of the best options we have right now in terms of expanding our reach.
Of course, when you make a statement like that, you have to ask the question of, "How would we do it?"
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5. How Would We Colonize the Oceans?
That is the question, isn't it? How would we go about making life in an area where we can't breathe? Well you need to not limit your thinking like that. First and foremost, the ocean is a dual-sided coin. There's the surface, and then there's the underwater world.