Boat-Submarine Combo: Hyper-Sub

This exotic-looking boat has the ability to dive to 600 feet and back--without harm to boat or passengers. It is a boat-dry sub combination.

At first glance, some onlookers would probably think the test was a million-dollar ship sinking. But that was not the case. The Hyper-Sub Submersible Powerboat is a combination boat and submarine that is supposed to go underwater.

Developers said as a boat it can hit speeds of up to 35 mph, and as a sub it can go 5 mph and as far as 600 feet under water....The Hyper-Sub sports two-inch thick, iron reinforced glass to keep things safe inside during a dive.

"The first few times it was kind of scary. I was getting claustrophobic when the water would come over the top of the cabin where I could see. It was a little scary, but now it's kind of routine and most of what I think about is how much better we could do on the next one," said engineer Scott Shamblin.

Marion said now that his demo is up and running, his company has proved a lot of people wrong.

"Most of the submersible engineers we spoke to before we started building this told us that this was not possible for one craft. So we made history," Marion said.

Source Via Subreport

Converting this boat-sub so that it could also drive on highways should not be too difficult theoretically. In fact, designing a combination motor home, boat, and submarine should be well within the capability of most undergraduate engineering students. Actually building it is something else again.

I predict that within ten years, nanotech 3-D replicator technology will be far enough along to show the way clear to the final goal: the boat-sub-car-plane.