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Timeline for Why can't spaceships go underwater?

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Jul 22, 2020 at 18:09 history edited The Square-Cube Law CC BY-SA 4.0
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Jun 16, 2020 at 11:03 history edited CommunityBot
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Mar 10, 2018 at 19:11 history edited can-ned_food CC BY-SA 3.0
added counterexample of Leviathans from Farscape, which can swim but will take–on water
Mar 10, 2018 at 9:02 comment added Keltari Spaceships = keeping the inside from getting out. Submarines = keeping the outside from getting in
Mar 9, 2018 at 20:37 comment added Omegacron Also Star Trek - there was an episode of "Voyager" where the ship went underwater, as well as the beginning scenes of "Star Trek: Into Darkness" where the Enterprise was hiding under the ocean surface.
Mar 9, 2018 at 17:12 comment added bubbajake00 Another example is the Puddle Jumpers from Stargate: Atlantis. They frequently use them for space travel and for underwater travel while the city is underwater. There was also an episode where one of the characters was trapped in it when the propulsion died and sank to the bottom of the ocean. It couldn't stay there to long, but it stayed for some time while he was being found and rescued.
Mar 8, 2018 at 22:55 comment added Perkins If your spaceship's life support system is sufficiently adjustable you can potentially get a fair amount of depth out of it just by increasing the internal pressure to match the external pressure. And if your internals are sufficiently waterproof you can go even deeper by just letting it flood.
S Mar 8, 2018 at 16:06 history suggested CommunityBot CC BY-SA 3.0
corrected quote, added link to video
Mar 8, 2018 at 15:57 review Suggested edits
S Mar 8, 2018 at 16:06
Mar 8, 2018 at 10:57 comment added AJFaraday Perfect answer, particularly for the Farnsworth quote.
Mar 7, 2018 at 12:13 comment added Darren H Plus the obvious example of Atlantis from the Stargate series of the same name...
Mar 7, 2018 at 11:21 comment added Flater I think you're wrong about Sphere. We never see the spaceship fly. At the end, the sphere itself lifts into the air, not the ship. The ship didn't collapse under the water pressure, but we don't know if it's still capable of actually flying after having submerged. Unless the book is different from the movie? (I read the book years ago, thought it was the same as the movie, but I could be mistaken).
Mar 7, 2018 at 9:51 comment added Sebastian Redl Is there any evidence that the Flying Subs from Terror from the Deep are space-capable?
Mar 7, 2018 at 8:08 history edited Astor Florida CC BY-SA 3.0
Added example
Mar 6, 2018 at 14:22 comment added Captain Man @Samuel luckily the Planet Express ship's engines were designed to move the universe around it, not the ship itself, so it makes sense that it would work underwater.
Mar 6, 2018 at 12:50 history edited The Square-Cube Law CC BY-SA 3.0
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Mar 6, 2018 at 9:08 comment added TomTom I would also remove the Trident assault ship as it is obviously a special case - an assault ship and it is not regular.
Mar 6, 2018 at 1:19 comment added Davislor One especially notable example: the eponymous Space Battleship Yamato is the actual hull of the Japanese battleship Yamato from the Pacific war, salvaged at the bottom of the ocean.
Mar 6, 2018 at 0:50 comment added jpmc26 When did the spacecraft leave the ocean in Sphere? In both the movie and apparently the book, the ship itself gets blown up. The sphere itself may return to space, but that's not the ship.
Mar 6, 2018 at 0:25 history edited The Square-Cube Law CC BY-SA 3.0
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Mar 5, 2018 at 23:43 comment added Samuel @MattBowyer Yes, that's the only one I found as well.
Mar 5, 2018 at 23:39 comment added Matt Bowyer @Samuel have a look at the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VA-111_Shkval. I appreciate that it's not the same as a rocket used for space propulsion, but it's not unreasonable to suggest that a rocket could be developed that would work in both environments.
Mar 5, 2018 at 23:03 comment added Samuel @MattBowyer I can find one torpedo that uses a rocket propulsion system. Seems rather uncommon and even in this one case, it's very different than rockets used for atmospheric and space travel.
Mar 5, 2018 at 22:59 comment added Matt Bowyer @Samuel - not necessarily a huge problem; rockets are used in some applications (mainly torpedoes) for underwater propulsion
Mar 5, 2018 at 22:19 comment added Shufflepants You mention an alien base in the Mariana Trench. And you even use the word "abyssal", but you don't mention the giant alien space ship at the bottom of the ocean in the movie The Abyss. But otherwise, +1 for the Futurama reference that was going to post as soon as I read the question title if some one hadn't already.
Mar 5, 2018 at 21:49 comment added Samuel Love that Futurama quote. Of course, they also can visit Venus with those specifications. Air pressure on the surface is 90 bar. You didn't touch on a possibly more critical factor, that spaceship propulsion systems are rarely designed for liquid environments.
Mar 5, 2018 at 21:41 history answered The Square-Cube Law CC BY-SA 3.0