When I was a kid, I read a book by A C Clarke called "The Deep Range." It was about an astronaut cashiered from the space program who goes to work for a comparable exploration and colonization effort of the earth's oceans. In Clarke's future world, the oceans are being fully exploited scientifically, industrially and agriculturally, and settlements and infrastructure dot the ocean bottoms. Clarke's thesis was pretty obvious to me even then: the oceans are a frontier as challenging and as potentially valuable as outer space. Furthermore, there was no reason why man could not take advantage of both, indeed, the two efforts had much in common and could benefit from each other.

Decades after Clarke's story, a great deal of progress has been made in the exploration of space and of the seas, but nothing like the future he envisioned. The failure to institute his vision of ocean exploration in particular is especially disappointing since the technology required and the benefits to be gained are, at least for the near future, much more accessible and attractive at sea than in space. Clarke was not the only one to arrive at this conclusion, many futurists wrote then about the exploration of "inner space" and its expected benefits for the human race. Still, it never happened, either in space or under the sea, certainly not to the extent which our present technology is capable of supporting. We have already demonstrated we can go anywhere in the ocean we want, and even permanent bases there are well within the range of our engineering capabilities.

Those of us who are enthusiastic about the exploration of space, and impatient with our failure to prosecute it vigorously, may very well consider why Clarke's Deep Range never materialized, even though it was a goal much closer to our capabilities than the Wild Black Yonder. I would be curious to hear your comments, ladies and gentlemen.