Continental Shelf Station Two or Conshelf Two was an attempt at creating an environment in which people could live and work on the sea floor. It was the successor to Continental Shelf Station One (Conshelf One). The alternate designation Precontinent has also been used to describe the set of projects to build an underwater "village" carried out by

Jacques-Yves Cousteau Jacques-Yves Cousteau, (, also , ; 11 June 191025 June 1997) was a French naval officer, oceanographer, filmmaker and author. He co-invented the first successful open-circuit self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (SCUBA), called the A ...

and his team. The projects were named Precontinent I (Conshelf One), Precontinent II (Conshelf Two) and Precontinent III (Conshelf Three). Each following project was aimed at increasing the depth at which people continuously lived under water.

Precontinent I

Precontinent I was constructed offshore from Marseille, France, in 1962. Two scuba divers spent two weeks in a small chamber 12 meters deep on the

seabed The seabed (also known as the seafloor, sea floor, ocean floor, and ocean bottom) is the bottom of the ocean. All floors of the ocean are known as seabeds. The structure of the seabed of the global ocean is governed by plate tectonics. Most of ...

Precontinent II

In 1963, six oceanauts lived 10 metres down in the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

, at Sha’ab Rumi off

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

, in a

starfish Starfish or sea stars are Star polygon, star-shaped echinoderms belonging to the class (biology), class Asteroidea (). Common usage frequently finds these names being also applied to brittle star, ophiuroids, which are correctly referred to ...

-shaped house for 30 days. The undersea living experiment also had two other structures, one a

submarine A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or infor ...

hangar A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word ''hangar'' comes from Middle French ''hanghart'' ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish ...

that housed a small, two man submarine referred to as the "diving saucer" for its resemblance to a

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

flying saucer A flying saucer, or flying disc, is a purported type of disc-shaped unidentified flying object (UFO). The term was coined in 1947 by the United States (US) news media for the objects pilot Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting, Kenneth Arnold claimed fl ...

, and a smaller "deep cabin" where two oceanauts lived at a depth of 30 metres for a week. The undersea colony was supported with air, water, food, power, and all other essentials of life, from a large support team above. Men on the bottom performed a number of experiments intended to determine the practicality of working on the sea floor and were subjected to continual medical examinations. Two support ships on the surface provided

compressed air Compressed air is air kept under a pressure that is greater than atmospheric pressure. Compressed air in vehicle tires and shock absorbers are commonly used for improved traction and reduced vibration. Compressed air is an important medium for t ...

and other logistical support to Precontinent II. When the experiment ended, two structures were dismantled and removed. The rest became undersea destinations for recreational divers. The work was funded in part by the French

petrochemical industry file:Jampilen Petrochemical Co. 02.jpg, 300px, Jampilen Petrochemical co., Asaluyeh, Iran The petrochemical industry is concerned with the production and trade of petrochemicals. A major part is constituted by the plastics industry, plastics (poly ...

, who, along with

Jacques Cousteau Jacques-Yves Cousteau, (, also , ; 11 June 191025 June 1997) was a French naval officer, oceanographer, filmmaker and author. He co-invented the first successful open-circuit self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (SCUBA), called the ...

, hoped that such manned colonies could serve as base stations for the future exploitation of the sea. Conshelf Two is documented in Jacques Cousteau's 1964 documentary film '' World Without Sun'', that won Best Documentary at the

37th Academy Awards The 37th Academy Awards were held on April 5, 1965, to honor film achievements of 1964. The ceremony was produced by MGM's Joe Pasternak and hosted, for the 14th time, by Bob Hope. The Best Picture winner, George Cukor's ''My Fair Lady'', w ...

. File:Conshelf II - Deep Lab (Wiki).jpg, Deep Lab File:Conshelf II - Garage (Wiki).jpg, Garage File:Conshelf II - Starfish (Wiki).jpg, Starfish House File:Precontinent II - Frontansicht.jpg, Front view, 2017 File:Precontinent II - Geräteschuppen.jpg, Toolshed, 2017 File:Precontinent II - Innenansicht.jpg, Inside view, 2017 File:Precontinent II - Unteransicht.jpg, Bottom view, 2017

Precontinent III

Such colonies did not find a productive future, however, as Cousteau, after forming Conshelf Three a few years later, withdrew his support for such exploitation of the sea and put his efforts toward conservation. It was also found in later years that industrial tasks underwater could be more efficiently performed by undersea robot devices and divers operating from the surface or from smaller lowered structures, made possible by a more advanced understanding of diving physiology and more complex mixtures of breathing gases. File:Conshelf III.jpg, Conshelf III Underwater Habitat File:Lamaisonsouslamer.jpg, Conshelf III photo

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