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China’s “Deep Sea Space Station” Will Be 6,500ft Underwater

Originally posted on SURFER | By Dashel Pierson | Last updated Feb 25, 2025 7:16 PM ET

The world’s oceans, covering 70 percent of the earth, are vast, ominous, and largely unexplored. According to a June, 2024 report from NOAA, only 26.1 percent of the ocean floor has been mapped. That’s staggeringly low; that’s like looking at a photo of a person, trying to see a clear picture of their face, and only getting an ear, or an eyeball. If it were a dating app, you’d undoubtedly swipe left.

But China recently announced a project aimed at exploring the unexplored, getting a clearer picture of the ocean’s mysteries. And they’re doing so by going straight to the source – 2,000 meters (6,561 feet) beneath the surface. Still, that’s only about half the depth of the sunken remains of the Titanic (12,500 feet off eastern Canada). But hey, it’s a full-on research station down there.

Per Oceanographic Magazine, the station, which will be located in the South China Sea, “is expected to be completed by 2030 with the ability to accommodate up to six scientists at a time who will inhabit the ‘deep sea space station’ for up to a month at a time.

“It has been reported that the primary focus of the facility will be the study of ‘cold seep’ ecosystems in the area. These are unique environments that have previously been found to be teeming with life as well as home to vast deposits of methane hydrates, a resource earmarked for its potential source of energy.”

Details surrounding what this facility will look like are scarce. But sci-fi fantasies abound…hence the video above.

And just for reference, what’s the deepest that humans have ever gone in the ocean? That happened back in 2020, when a crew aboard the Challenger Deep vessel sunk down the Mariana Trench in the Pacific (the deepest point in all the oceans, at least that we know) and reached 10,927 meters – that’s 35,849 feet, or 6.7 miles.

What will the Chinese find down there? TBD.

This article first appeared on SURFER and was syndicated with permission.

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