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SeaQuest DSV (1993-1996)
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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 17, 2022 2:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

scotpens wrote:
I always wondered about the function of the padded epaulets and the ribbed V-shaped section down the front.

I always thought that it was to provide protection against neck trauma during the DC process.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 17, 2022 10:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gord Green wrote:
scotpens wrote:
I always wondered about the function of the padded epaulets and the ribbed V-shaped section down the front.

I always thought that it was to provide protection against neck trauma during the DC process.

Well, that answer is about as good as any, Gord. Laughing

For my money, details like that on the uniforms by Walter Plunkett were just to give them an appealing look. In fact, when my mother took me to see Forbidden Planet in 1956, I remember her saying that she liked the uniforms! Very Happy

But in all fairness, Plunkett did include a pocket inside the left epaulet. Jerry Farman reached into it to pull out the small device data device that had info about the Bellerophon crew.




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Pow
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 19, 2022 12:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Behind the Scenes Drama that Sank SeaQuest DSV: Ranker.

The expensive show struggled in the ratings, writers and producers clashed, cast replacements took place in the second and third seasons, the series lead quit 2/3 of the way through the run.

Ranker: SeaQuest DSV joined the glut of television SF shows that were built upon the success of Star Trek: The Next Generation. TV was stuffed with such SF series as The X-Files, Babylon 5, Quantum Leap, and Sliders at that time.

Ranker: TV was traditionally dominated by cop shows and sitcoms. The high cost of producing a SF show tended not to match up with audience demand. SF shows are a tough sell to networks looking at their profit margins.

Ranker: All that changed with the successful syndicated launch of Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987. It was an era-defining hit reaching 11,000,000 households at its peak.

Ranker: SeaQuest was seen as a can't-miss idea: mix Star Trek with Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. It was the brainchild of Rockne O'Bannon (Farscape) who had written the 1988 film Alien Nation (1988), which later became a TV series on FOX.

Steven Spielberg was Executive Producer on the first two seasons of SeaQuest. His presence on the series guaranteed its substantial budget. Each episode would come in at $1,500,000. Because of Spielberg, NBC ordered 22-episodes, an entire season, instead of the standard 13-episodes.

Ranker: Universal Studios deftly used the threat against NBC of taking SeaQuest into first-run syndication since that model had proven so successful for Star Trek: The Next Generation. This strong-armed NBC into terms financially onerous and incredibly risky for the network.

Ranker: The similarities between ST:TNG and SeaQuest were obvious.

ST:TNG had its United Federation of Planets; SQ had its United Earth Oceans (UEO) as the overseeing branch of the government.

Both show's had a stern, grumpy, moralistic but lovable captain.

Both series had a boy genius on board. Wesley Crusher for ST:TNG and Lucas Wolenczak on SQ.

ST:TNG had the warm and motherly Dr. Beverly Crusher. SQ had the same persona with Dr. Kristin Westphalen.

William Riker was the hotshot young first officer on the Enterprise. Jonathan Ford was SQ's version.

You get the point.

Ranker: However, no one should dismiss SeaQuest as a mere rip off when you have Steven Spielberg, one of the most powerful Hollywood individuals on board the series.

Ranker: Even with Spielberg, the production was riddled with conflict. Spielberg was away in Poland for many months to shoot his Academy Award winning film Schindler's List during SQ.

Ranker: SQ's lead, Roy Scheider (Captain Nathan Bridger) clashed with Executive Producer Tommy Thompson over the creative vision for the show. Scheider wanted it to be quirkier and realistic; Thompson was going for a darker and action-based feel.

Ranker: The critics were generally unimpressed with SQ. It was called ponderous and plodding. A huge audience showed up to view the pilot episode but then left in droves as time went on.

SQ was beaten in the ratings by ABC's SF TV series Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.

Ranker: It was a huge surprise when NBC announced SQ's renewal for a second season. It was reported that because the network had spent a fortune on SQ they didn't want to look bad. So they were calling defeat a victory.

Ranker: NBC then overhauled the show. They moved the series from Los Angeles to Orlando, Florida in order to lower production costs. The bridge was redesigned to be less technically accurate but more cinematic.

Four of the nine first season cast members were replaced in order to make the series feel younger and appeal to that all important demographic age for TV advertisers, the 18 to 34 year old group.

Dr. Robert Ballard of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute had hosted at the end credits on the first season a segment called Sea Facts. This ended for the second season.

Ranker: SQ descended into pulp absurdity for its second season. Peter DeLuise was brought into the cast as Dagwood who was a G.E.L.F. (Genetically Engineered Lifeforms.) This was the show's attempt to create a character who was innocent and appealing just like the brilliant android Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The problem was that Dagwood had low intelligence because he was a clone that had been developed for combat. This became a limiting factor for involving Dagwood into complex storylines.

Ranker: Roy Schneider hated the second season. According to him it was "Total childish trash. Old, tired, time-warp robot crap." Schneider wanted out, he felt betrayed.

Ranker: Season number three of SQ would involve another retooling of the show. It now had a new title: SeaQuest 2032.

More cast changes, a new captain, and a new attitude. This iteration of the show was less about wild fantasy ideas and aliens and was more focused on geopolitical issues of the underwater future. The series attempted to be more gritty and hoped to attract a primarily male audience.

None of it helped.

None of this managed to salvage the show and NBC finally cancelled it due to its persistent low ratings.

Ranker: Today, SeaQuest can be seen as an overly hyped expensive and troubled production.

However, during its run and with its handful of high-minded, thoughtful, exciting episodes it attempted to bring science and the value of exploration and curiosity into American homes.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 19, 2022 2:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

The fact that the Network Dimwits thought any of these changes were good ideas is plum depressing. Rolling Eyes

The series wasn't perfect in the first season, but it did have several exceptional episodes that my family and I loved. We watched it religiously — except for my teenage daughter, whose secret thoughts about the handsome Jonathan Brandis were far from pious . . . Shocked

I certain agree with Roy Scheider; the second season took an intelligent series and gave it a lobotomy. As a result, it became a drooling, mumbling idiot.

Pow, the comparison of SQ to TNG has gone right over my head until your post pointed it out. Frankly the ripoff was clever, because the character dynamics on SQ's first season worked like a charm.

One of the best characters, however, was the one played by a jaw-dropping lady named Stacy Haiduk. She was tough, smart, and charming.






In one episode (I'll be damned if I can find out which one) she sang a sexy song on a stage in a bar. I sure wish I find a clip of that scene. It was hot enough to boil sea water . . . Shocked
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Pow
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 19, 2022 9:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm surprised, Bud, that you didn't notice the similarities between SeaQuest & ST:TNG. Still, SQ gave these likenesses enough original nuances to make it all interesting to watch.

Like you, I was a devoted fan of the show. Mainly because so few SF films or television series deal with futuristic stories that involve life beneath the seas. Outer space seems to be the go-to premise for many a SF series. And while I love that premise, it is always intriguing to see a SF show tackle a rarely used environment such as our incredible oceans.

I was saddened to see the decline in the quality of the scripts as the series went into its second and third seasons. Bob Ballard's info segments were always cool, but they dropped that after the first season.

The cast exits after season one were disappointing for me. Stephanie Beacham & Stacy Haiduk were both a great loss to the cast.

The production values were absolutely first rate. SQ (along with Babylon 5) were the very first weekly TV series to employ CGI on a regular basis. In time SF TV series would all shift away from utilizing practical model work and into CGI, changing the landscape forever. CGI experts always say that they're able to do vastly more with it than what could be done with models. The SeaQuest sets were fantastic looking and seemed like they could easily be shown in a feature film. The uniforms were believable and you could buy that they really were practical everyday clothes that one could work in. The communication devices and hand weapon were equally impressive designs.

I disliked the redesigned bridge they did for the second season even if it did make it easier to film on. The first season bridge was a thing of beauty.

I always found their unmanned Hyper-Reality Probe (aka Vehicle) a marvelous concept, as well as a good design. It would make sense that futuristic submarines (and spaceships) would have just such a device that could safely explore different situations without endangering crew members.

"Such Great Patience" May 8, 1994 remains one of my favorite episodes to this day. The SeaQuest investigates a recent undersea earthquake only to discover an ancient alien spacecraft. It was their first encounter with aliens on the series and the story worked beautifully. I disliked their subsequent extraterrestrial stories. They were overdone and not well written at all. Even Mark Hamill's presence on the later alien plots could not elevate the scripting.

I enjoyed all of the first season cast and felt they had a decent chemistry together.

I was unaware of all of the backstage dissension that were creating so many problems. A similar situation happened on another SF show I enjoyed: Sliders.

I have the DVDs of Seaquest and continue to marvel and how the show visually remains quite impressive over twenty years later.

And how in the world SeaQuest was bested in the ratings by the atrocious Lois & Clark remains unfathomable to me even with the presence of the gorgeous Terri Hatcher?

It's now 29-years since SeaQuest DSV debuted. I'm unaware of any SF TV show since then which has set its concept below the sea. Perhaps the SeaQuest debacle and expense has frightened off networks from venturing into that area again. After all, it was 25-years between the end of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and the premiere of SeaQuest...and Voyage was a hit that ran four seasons!

So I'm unsure as to when---or if---we'll ever see another SF TV show set underwater. And that's a pity.
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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 20, 2022 2:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have to admit that is one show I never had the occasion to watch. It was aired during a time when I was working 12 to 16 hour days and TV was the last of my priorities.

However ...This is exactly the type of shows I would have loved!

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 20, 2022 11:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pow wrote:
I always found their unmanned Hyper-Reality Probe (aka Vehicle) a marvelous concept, as well as a good design. It would make sense that futuristic submarines (and spaceships) would have just such a device that could safely explore different situations without endangering crew members.

I have the DVDs of Seaquest and continue to marvel and how the show visually remains quite impressive over twenty years later.

All Sci-Fi member Morbius' amazing drones do exactly what the Hyper-Reality Probes do — provide him with eyes in the sky which that fly around his neighbor for a birds eye view of the area.

By the way, I own the DVDs of SeaQuest, too. If you still can't master the fine art of WeTransfer downloads, why don't we share a few SQ episodes.
Laughing
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Pow
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 20, 2022 5:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm up for a SeaQuest fest anytime, Bud. I do only have season #1 though because the succeeding seasons were so disappointing.

"For beneath the surface lies the future."
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 20, 2022 7:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Sounds great! I have no interest in Season 2, and I'm not even sure my DVD box set includes it.

Pick a day. I'll be ready at any time you choose!

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PostPosted: Sat Jul 30, 2022 12:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Starburst Magazine:

The two-hour pilot was viewed by a staggering 47-million people, it was the most watched program of the week.

That success was short-lived, within one month, nearly 39% of the original audience was gone.

Rockne O'Bannon, creator & scriptwriter for the two-hour pilot, interview:

"NBC was in third place at that time. The A-Team had single-handedly turned around the network when it was in a similar predicament. They were banking on SeaQuest to do the same thing for them."

"That resulted in NBC's 22-episode order which is unheard of by any network. No network was ordering a full season of any show. They order 13-episodes, and depending how a show fares in the ratings, they will either order more episodes, or cancel it, even before all 13-episodes have aired."

"The big monkey wrench in it was producer Steven Spielberg. He always has a zillion projects going on at the same time. He was in pre-production with Jurassic Park at the time. Consequently he was unable to dedicate much time to SeaQuest. He would come for a meeting with us about the show, and you knew he hadn't thought about it until he came through the door at that minute."

"Steven did come up with a number of great ideas. Some worked, like the hologram mentor for Captain Bridger, but others did not. Some of his concepts were simply larger-than-life. While they would have worked fine on a film with a generous shooting schedule and budget, they were impractical for television."

"I could see in pre-production there were serious budgetary problems already emerging. As the sets were built and a huge tank installed, large chunks of money were already being eaten away. You're trying to maintain some semblance of the original budget, and you've got Amblin TV (Spielberg's company), and Universal in a battle over things. Spielberg, who has tremendous autonomy at Universal, wasn't around for any of it to help us out."

Thoughts: So poor SeaQuest ended up having major problems right from the get go, even before it premiered.
One wonders if the production had been handled smartly from the start, and if Spielberg had been free enough to devote a lot of time to the series, would that have made for a better show? And would that have translated into higher ratings?

StIll, SeaQuest was not a total disaster. It did have some wonderful stories along the way. The production values were all of a high caliber, the ensemble cast was excellent in the first season. It's a shame that it did not live up to its promise. Another science-fiction TV series filed under: What could have been?"
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 30, 2022 2:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

__________________________________________________

It seems to me that such shows only work if there's a true visionary to the helm, a Roddenberry type.

If a sci-fi series is run by businessmen who make major decisions based on questions like, "What do people want to see?" and "What can be done inexpensively?", then the show is just considered a potential cash cow — not a mind-boggling science fiction series that attracts a loyal audience of intelligent people.

SeaQuest was pitched to the public as the later. What we got, unfortunately, was the former.

Moooooo . . . Rolling Eyes


___________ 1994 seaQuest DSV on NBC Promo


___________



___________[HD]Seaquest DSV Season 1 Intro


___________



___________ SeaQuest theme with JFK Narration


___________


And just for fun, somebody put this together. Very Happy

___ Star Trek Enterprise with SeaQuest DSV Theme


___________



Pow wrote:
I'm up for a SeaQuest fest anytime, Bud. I do only have season #1 though because the succeeding seasons were so disappointing.


Bud Brewster wrote:
Sounds great! Pick a day. I'll be ready at any time you choose!

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 10, 2023 5:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

______________________________________________

Well, guys, after spending the last few weeks binge watching my box sets of the 2003 series Las Vegas and the 1990s series Xenaa: Warrior Princess, I decided to revisit SeaQuest DSV! Very Happy

I'm on the second regular episode after the pilot — S1.E2 ∙ Treasure of the Mind — in which a surviving portion of the Alexandrian Library is discovered under the ocean, and Captain Bridger has to mediate the disputes by among the nations who want to claim the archaeological treasures for themselves.

The thing I noticed about this 30-year-old series is that it's obviously meant to appeal to audiences who enjoyed episodes with interesting stories that are presented at a deliberate pace, with a minimum of action.

Now, thirty years later, TV shows and movies are designed to bombard us with fast-paced stories which assume audiences can't tolerate periods long with dialog that require them to process story elements and concepts which require too much thought . . . Rolling Eyes

This sad fact about modern audiences has apparently been developing for the last three decades, because SeaQuest DSV first season suffered low ratings.

So, the network morons revamped this series in the hope that it would appeal to younger viewers.

Gentlemen, we Baby Boomers have witnessed the gradual decline of America's intellectual abilities to appreciate intelligent science fiction. And now it's reached the point where the population wants all their movies and TV series to resemble the mindless video games which are eating away at our nation's collective intelligence. Sad

This is why message boards like All Sci-Fi are rapidly fading away — fewer and fewer people are able to enjoy a forum which encourages the exchange of new ideas between individuals with both intelligence and imagination.

Gentlemen, I'm proud to host a website which includes members who possess those qualities.

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Krel
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 10, 2023 9:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:

But in all fairness, Plunkett did include a pocket inside the left epaulet. Jerry Farman reached into it to pull out the small device data device that had info about the Bellerophon crew.


It was a pocket microfiche reader. Pretty clever and logical way to have a great deal of information in your pocket.

Plunkett did complain that he was not allowed to do anything wild with the men's costumes. I think that was to the advantage of the movie.

David.
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Pow
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 19, 2024 8:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

From the website Luxury Launches.

In 2016, researchers at Pennsylvania State Applied Research Lab, funded by the U.S. Navy, started development work on a revolutionary submarine that can attain supersonic speeds.

The Harbin Institute of Technology Complex of Flow and Heat transfer laboratory in China is also working on a supersonic submarine concept.

Drag underwater is the biggest problem for submarines regarding speed. Supercavitation envelopes a submerged vessel inside an air bubble in order to mitigate drag.

The U.S.S.R. created it during the Cold War for a torpedo named Shakval which was capable of reaching speeds around 230 mph.

The theory is that one day a submarine could attain the speed of 3600 mph. This would mean that such a submarine could travel from New York to London in 50-minutes. The 5,300 miles between San Francisco & Tokyo could be covered in 90-minutes.

Naturally this is all many, many years away from happening in the real world. It does give any creators of future feature films & television shows something exciting to consider as part of the premise for their productions about the future of undersea life here on earth, or on another world. Imagine a futuristic super sonic submarine that could safely cut through the oceans at such speeds? A city beneath the sea with access to such remarkable vessels? It could open up some fantastic storylines.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 19, 2024 11:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pow wrote:
The theory is that one day a submarine could attain the speed of 3600 mph. This would mean that such a submarine could travel from New York to London in 50-minutes. The 5,300 miles between San Francisco & Tokyo could be covered in 90-minutes.

This is hard to believe. Water is so much more dense than air that it would seem impossible for a sub to move that fast. And what kind of propulsion system would it use, Surely the typical "screws" couldn't do the job! Confused

Also, imagine the pressure on the bow if a sub were traveling that fast! Shocked

But, as usual, I found out that I don't know everything. Rolling Eyes

So, I did my homework and learned that a supersonic submarine is being developed by the Chinese. Here's an article I found at Extremetech.co.
_______________________________________________


China's supersonic submarine, which could go from Shanghai to San Francisco in 100 minutes, creeps ever closer to reality





Researchers in China are reporting that they've taken a big step towards creating a supersonic submarine. This technology, which could just as easily be applied to weaponized torpedoes as military or civilian submarines, could theoretically get from Shanghai to San Francisco — about 6,000 miles — in just 100 minutes. If all this doesn't sound crazy enough, get this: This new advance by the Chinese is based on supercavitation, which was originally developed by the Soviets in the '60s, during the Cold War.

As you may already know, it's a lot harder for an object to move quickly through water than air. This is mostly due to increased drag. Without getting into the complexities of fluid dynamics, water is simply much thicker and more viscous than air —- and as a result it requires a lot more energy for an object to push through it.

You can experience the increased drag of water yourself next time you're in a swimming pool: Raise your hand above your head, and then let it fall towards the water. (Or alternatively, if there are people sunbathing nearby, do a belly flop.)

Anyway, much like a small-engined car is ultimately limited by its ability to cut through wind resistance (drag), a submarine or torpedo needs insane amounts of power to achieve high velocity through water. This is why, even in 2014, most submarines and torpedoes can't go much faster than 40 knots (~46 mph). Higher speeds are possible, but it requires so much power that it's not really feasible (torpedoes only have so much fuel).






Enter supercavitation, a technique devised by the Soviets in 1960 with the explicit purpose of creating high-speed torpedoes. Supercavitation gets around the drag of water by creating a bubble of gas for the object to travel through. The USSR's research resulted in the Shkval torpedo, which uses a special nose cone to create the supercavitation envelope, allowing it to travel through the water at speeds of up to 200 knots (~230 mph, 370 kph) — much, much faster than the standard torpedoes fielded by the US.

The only other countries with supercavitational weapons are Iran (which probably reverse-engineered a Russian Shkval), and Germany with its fantastically named Superkavitierender Unterwasserlaufkörper ("supercavitating underwater running body"). The US is researching its own supercavitational torpedo, but there's very little public information available.






Which brings us neatly onto China. Unlike previous approaches, which have to be launched at high speed (~60 mph) to create the initial supercavitation bubble, the method described by the Harbin Institute of Technology in China(Opens in a new window) uses a "special liquid membrane" that reduces friction at low speeds.

This liquid is constantly showered over the object to replenish the membrane as it's worn off by the water. Once the torpedo/submarine/vessel gets up to speed, it sounds like it uses the same gas-through-nose-cone technique to achieve supercavitation. (Details are a bit vague at this point.)

In theory, supercavitation could allow for speeds up to the speed of sound -- which, underwater, is a heady 1,482 meters per second, or 3,320 mph. At that speed, you could go from Shanghai to San Francisco (about 6,000 miles) in well under two hours. Suffice it to say that there isn't a country in the world that wouldn't love to have a submarine that can circumnavigate the world in half a day — especially a country with nuclear missiles, like China, Russia, France, the UK, or the US.





Caption: The nose cone of a Russian Shkval (Squall) torpedo. Note the vents for escaping gases, which combined with the flat nose create a supercavitation bubble.

In practice, though, it's a) very difficult to steer a supercavitating vessel (conventional methods, such as a rudder, won't work without water contact) — and b) developing an underwater engine that's capable of high velocity over long distances is very, very difficult. You can't use a jet engine underwater, sadly — and generally, rockets only have enough fuel for a few minutes, not hours. Nuclear power might be a possibility as far as supersonic submarines go, but that's just a guess.

Li Fengchen, a professor at the Harbin Institute, says their technology isn't limited to military use. Yes, supersonic submarines and torpedoes are top of the list — but the same tech could also boost civilian transport, or even boost the speed of swimmers.

"If a swimsuit can create and hold many tiny bubbles in water, it can significantly reduce the water drag; swimming in water could be as effortless as flying in the sky," says Li.

As always with such advanced (and potentially weaponized) technology, it's hard to say how far away it is from real-world use. If civilian researchers are making good progress, then it's a fairly safe bet that the military is even further along. Wang Guoyu, another Chinese researcher, told the South China Morning Post —

"The primary drive [for supercavitation] still comes from the military, so most research projects are shrouded in secrecy."

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