Since 1991, my team has been fully planning, designing, and preparing to build not only the first permanent undersea colony—but also designing and building prototype undersea habitats as well. Collectively, we have also logged more hours living and working under the sea than any other team. During that time, we have been involved in a great many economic exercises seeking to determine not only the resources and equipment to make it all come together, but also to fund the active colonies across the world’s oceans into perpetuity with zero risk of running out of resources and ending the permanency of the venture. Through all of this focused study during these past decades, here is what we have come to understand with significant clarity:

 
In most publicized undersea ventures, even when there is much smoke and extemporaneous bravado—no actual fire can ultimately exist undersea! We have seen our share of ventures and those of many others involving much public smoke and extravagant claims, even by some very famous people, but not a single one of these has survived. We are the longest-running undersea colony venture in history—and while we are still working to make it happen, a vast majority have failed, tossed in the towel, and gone home. I guess they had better things to do with their lives…

 
We do not.

 
From these very diverse groups, there have been long-running differences in the understanding of a potential undersea economy and what it requires to market it to those ends. The most popular of these common hypotheses (with several variations) have been this: “If and when they could just find someone else to finance them, then they would show a very attentive and fascinated world that it can become economically self-sufficient, which would result in the “inevitable” return on everyone’s investment, everyone would be happy, and they would hence find the success they had been looking for.”

 
The Bad News

 
Here are the fatal errors embedded in that argument, as there are likewise fatal real-world examples to point to.

 
Jacques Cousteau is gone, and his marketing arm, the National Geographic Society, has wandered off doing other things long ago. The poster boy is dead, and his fans are mostly gone with him or in their very senior years. He built some very interesting expeditions, but in the end, he himself declared permanency as “unrealistic”. (See Undersea Colonies I – Page 100 bottom paragraph – and from Great Lives from History, 1991, Salem Press, 487).

 
Neither the 21st-century, media-obsessed public, nor their media masters, are fascinated or attentive enough to even recognize any undersea ventures. SpaceX and Elon Musk’s Mars activities have seized the day, and, along with him, the media.

 
Priming any economic pump requires ultimate products that have the potential for financial capitalization. Capitalization is defined simply as the power of cash flows linked to the viable capacity for marketing the potential of the venture to guarantee its successful preservation. Scientific research or tourism cannot afford this infrastructure alone, much less its perpetual maintenance. Otherwise, all such products such as energy or mining can be obtained with orders of magnitude of less cost and almost zero risk from the surface, with another magnitude of less cost per unit mass of product or kilowatt.

 
Operating a factory undersea is like operating a vital, highly effective municipal water supply from down under the aquifer. Or it is like operating a gasoline station from inside the gasoline storage tank. The most immediate, logical question is, “Why are you doing this?” The rationality of building an undersea empire for harvesting any product thus escapes most humans. That is because there is no discernible defensible reasoning behind living inside the element being harvested for cash that anyone with any skill in mass communications has been able to successfully explain. Thus, to light the spark that would enable a very distracted public to either care about or understand the concept has been a complete failure across the board.

 
The Good News

 
The ultimate good news is going to totally surprise most media-obsessed individuals: zero justification is required. No one should care what someone else is thinking because external thought pressures are useless and typically counterproductive to accomplishing the goals. The media has thoroughly convinced a very gullible public that we must care what they think, that they have levied this nebulous responsibility on others that they must care. They have created the hivemind, so therefore all must come to be approved by it.

 
Those who have accepted this nonsense are the village idiots of the zeitgeist. I stated up front in Undersea Colonies that I am going to build and live permanently in an undersea colony for a one four-word driver that is totally sufficient to light that spark among my fellow humans. It is simple because: “… because I want to”.

 
No other argument is sufficient or as powerful. I do not need any other argument. Period. Ever. Just because… I want to.

 
At first glance at this argument, most would laugh and walk away at this confession from an engineer who might seem a bit crazy. Until it is pointed out (this is why clear and coherent messaging that is more than surface-deep is essential in any endeavor) that there are many cleverly marketed efforts around the globe that are multi-billion-dollar industries that are growing successfully—all based on the single “I want to” justification.

 
A. The world cruise ship industry is currently valued at $72.5 billion annually. Their customers get on a ship that basically sails in circles and returns home for a fee of thousands of dollars per passenger. Why do they participate in this seemingly pointless scheme? The customers will tell you they do it for the scenery and for the excitement in a thrilling setting. In other words, because they want to.

 
B. How about SCUBA diving adventures? This industry is valued at $20.4 billion worldwide. These people invest many thousands each in equipment, fees, and travel connections to participate in what is accurately viewed as a potentially dangerous activity where the risk is justified by “the undersea beauty” and the excitement of participating in the chancy and often uncomfortable sport. In other words, because they want to.

 
C. How about mountain climbing? Here is an extreme and very risky activity rated worldwide at $18 billion for the excitement and the views. Why? Because they want to.

 
D. How about the timeshare and vacation club industry? It is characterized by buying a tiny slice of the year in a nice place somewhere away from home for a price that would bring tears to any family budget. Why? For the “change of scenery” and the ability to “get away from home”. This $19.23 billion enterprise makes little sense to many, and yet it is big and growing, just because… those who buy in want to.

 
So, the engineer is not crazy after all. Those who participate in A, but not B, C, and D, think everyone else is mad, but not them. And so forth down the list. The bottom line here, in these few examples (because there are many more), is that humans are wired to “do exactly what they want to” and care very little, if any, about other people’s judgments. In a few years, humans will be climbing on huge rockets to depart forever for Mars, an enormous and very dangerous risk. Why? Because they want to, and none of them will care at all what other humans may think.

 
In a few years, many other humans will depart to live their lives in undersea colonies. This risk is totally minuscule compared to that of a Mars colonist. Why? Because they want to, and none of them will care at all what other humans may think.

 
How does this philosophy fit into the marketing plan? It fits perfectly because all these hugely successful activities that millions of humans participate in every day are highly successful because they cater to those who want to do them with zero justification by anyone else. No one ever needs a reason to do exactly what they want to when they want to. In the United States, we call this “freedom”.

 
It should be pointless to even have this discussion at all, except, bizarrely, many who are deeply interested in building undersea colonies are attempting to make it as difficult as possible for themselves by demanding that the economic and marketing design be solved even before the colony is built. It may be bizarre, but it is also understandable because many who have a keen interest in seeing it happen are puzzled by the lack of progress and are bored with the status quo, so they try to and account for reasons why it is stalled. This leads to absurd and wholly ridiculous speculations that typically miss the mark completely.

 
The End Game

 
So here is my take on this—the one who has been leading this challenge longer than any other. Long before he started SpaceX, Elon Musk wanted to build a permanent human presence by placing one million new human settlers on Mars. Using government systems, processes, and technology available in 2010, it would have cost more than the entire world GDP for fifty years and still would have been impossible. So, he was forced to reinvent the technology, hardware, and redesign all the processes and expectations from the ground up. Then he had to invent two new industries powered by a pair of new classes of technologies to pay for it all: SpaceX and Starlink. And he is succeeding brilliantly.

 
What is his marketing plan? He is providing all the startup costs with the idea that if you build it, humans will come. The detailed economic self-sufficiency plan doesn’t have to be broken down and justified because at this point it is just another pointless debate among enthusiasts with little connection to a reality that has not yet been invented. People will go to Mars because they want to. That’s all the energy his programs need today. His economic success is guaranteed, as is clearly evidenced by all previous historic movements and human migrations.

 
The United States is just such an example. Imagine the absurdity of demanding an advanced economic plan going into that venture! The Brits had a few crops in mind and the economy of taxation of those who crossed the sea into an uncertain frontier -  just because they wanted to. Almost 99.999% of the actual economic reality unfolded over centuries and none of it could have been imagined the day it all began.

 
The exact same example is also true for the inevitable human migration to permanently settle the oceans. Just like Mars settlement, the pump must be primed with investment capital by one man’s dreams of empire. The same is true with the settlement of Aquatica, defined as the undersea regions of the Earth, consisting of the one global ocean.

 
So, then who will prime the economic pump for this historic aquatic venture?

 
The Atlantica Expeditions.

 
What is our marketing plan? We are footing the startup costs—and if we build it, then the humans who have their own private reasons will come. The detailed long-term economic self-sufficiency plan doesn’t need delineation at this stage, as it’s a colossal waste of time—just another pointless debate among enthusiasts with little connection to a reality that has not yet been invented. People will settle Aquatica in great undersea cities because they want to. That’s all the energy our program needs today.

 
Our future economic success is guaranteed, as is clearly evidenced by all previous historical movements and human migrations. We are quite beyond and totally finished with useless speculations. We are an engineering and research company only, building a permanent empire beneath the oceans of the world. We get up each morning and go to work every day with precision work plans tucked under our arms and a clear roadmap ahead in our briefcase. We are planners, engineers, scientists, and technical experts who focus entirely on building equipment every day. It’s all we do. And we are doing it because we want to.

 
It’s all the energy and the comprehensive strategy we need to get it all done very soon.

 
By the grace of God we succeed brilliantly, as we do each day right now and will continue to do tomorrow.

 Because we want to.