The problem is, in the case of an emergency, the owner might be unable to get to their capsule in time. However, if they added some kind of 'arm port' which would allow the user to stick their arm into a reinforced sleeve and glove and reach out, along with a mini 'airlock' to allow for shuttling things in and out safely, the owner could reside in one indefinitely, thus eliminating this window of danger.
It makes at least some sense from the perspective of someone living where tornadoes are a common occurrence.
But only “some”. It could be made significantly cheaper than traditional shelters because it’s made of aluminum, but there should be a way to anchor it to the ground - I have no desire to go bouncing around through a tornado, thank you very much.
The 4-person model is $17,500? I can get a larger traditional underground shelter for ~$8k installed. If I were in an area without the ability to dig down into the ground or where flooding was a major concern, this would be more attractive I suppose. As it is, it’s just spending 2-4x the money on an inferior solution.
This is probably the dumbest and least safe ways to take shelter from a Tornado. I mean first, they move at whopping 10mph-25mph and have a very very narrow damage path (most are less than a hundred yards). Every number of years you'll get a mega tornado somewhere, but those are rare events. Nearly all deaths in tornados are from people being where they are not supposed to be (first floors, or in a car) or not paying attention to weather warnings.
If you _had_ to, you _could_ simply move locations away from a tornado. If you move at 45degree angles to prevailing winds, for instance here in Kansas, that would be west or south, you could sidestep the mesocyclone. If you move northeast, you would increase the time for the mesocyclone to catch you. This is NOT recommended for obvious reasons: If everyone in a neighborhood tried to leave at once, a traffic jam would instantly form, and a car is the worst place to be. But still, if you had no other options, there you go.
The simplest form of shelter is a basement and is highly effective. Or on most new slab houses built in my state today, there's usually one room made of CMUs and has a timber ceiling (A 'safe room'). Even if you have a slab house, there are plastic tornado shelters you bury and provide ample protection if you _actually_ bought a house without a basement in Kansas.
This thing is the worst of all options: You can't move, you're trapped in it, it's above ground so it's susceptible to damage from flying debris (The main hazard in a tornado), it's not secured so you're going to be in a bouncing tornado hamster ball, and it it rolls onto it's door, good luck getting out.
Really the only use would be protect from flood events.
And even then, something perfectly round is the worst boat design I can imagine. You're going to be spinning constantly. Does anybody really want to be stuck in a ball with barf all over the walls?
You're spot on with people being where they shouldn't be. That's 99% of natural disasters.
“One day I saw a newspaper headline reporting that the President suggested that if Americans had to buy their bomb shelters, rather than being provided with them by the government, they'd take better care of them, an idea which made me furious. Logically, each of us should own a submarine, a jet fighter, and so forth.”
Sure, but this seems way more space-friendly. I don't know about the available space in Japan, but I'd have nowhere to fit a boat that only holds ten people, and I live so close to the water I can see it from my window.
Edit: I've also seen five drunk people capsize a dingy boat just trying to board it. So I'd hate to take my chances with anything that could capsize in a tsunami, where fast moving debris could crush or trap you the second you hit the water.
The survival capsule site is awesome and looks like a time capsule from five years ago. No updates to news or Youtube channel since then.
I always wonder about websites stuck in time like this. Someone is paying for the bandwidth and site maintenance, yet no effort toward new sales/marketing.
I have a few mostly abandoned side projects in which I periodically renew the certs, update packages, and pay monthly hosting only because I can't bring myself to shut it down.
Wonder what the story is for the Survival Capsule.
Often these types of sites are outsourced to a site-development company and they become just one of a large number of sites in their "portfolio" that they're maintaining - and they often have no clear process on how to stop maintaining, especially for things like plain hosting, etc.
Does it mention how the air vents work? They keep mentioning tsunami, but I'm unclear on how a sphere with air vents would work floating around in rough water. For that matter, does it even float upright?
"Survival Capsule LLC is an intellectual property company developing survival solutions for natural disasters."
"The Survival Capsule is patented as a personal safety system (PSS), designed as a sphere to protect against tsunami events, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, and storm surges."
So are they building these or are they just building an IP portfolio to use for licensing? Looks like they are taking "pre orders" but the latest news is from 2017, and nothing has been posted on their YouTube channel for 5 years.
"The sphere will withstand the initial impact of a natural disaster, as well as sharp object penetration, heat exposure, blunt object impact, and rapid deceleration."
Not if you do rapid deceleration at a serious level. The sphere might still look perfect, but whoever is inside will be very much dead. The ironic part is that they would survive better if the sphere wasn't as rigid and would deform, taking part of the forces.
Weirdly, it has 4-point restraints inside. That makes little sense to me, with it being a sphere. Those restraints are great if the force happens to hit in the correct direction; otherwise by far the biggest risk is going to be neck injury.
Given that there are seats facing each other, you’re all but guaranteed to have at least half of the occupants injured in a hard collision.
Not unscathed they won't, as there is no/insufficient padding in this design. It smells of reinventing a square wheel, or in this case, replacing a bigger rectilinear cellar with a small sphere.
Somewhat tangentially related, if some item with a lid claims to be waterproof or airtight, are there standards for it? Specifically can we count on it to be bug/pest proof? I would expect something like this survival bunker to be bug proof obviously, but are there grades to being waterproof and airtight and is it possible that the products on the lower end of the spectrum might let bugs in?
> The IP Code, or Ingress Protection Code,[1] sometimes referred to as International Protection Code, IEC standard 60529 classifies and rates the degree of protection provided by mechanical casings and electrical enclosures against intrusion, dust, accidental contact, and water.
There's the IP code (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_Code) but I've only seen it used with respect to devices. It's unclear (to me) if it would cover something like this.
Being stuck in one of these during a tsunami does not seem like a good idea.
If a large mass of debris collided with the capsule, the water tight seal or structure itself could become compromised. You'd then be left drowning in a capsule.
For this price, you can build a proper cyclone cellar with drainage, ventillation and most importantly escape hardware.
This thing is a coffin if it ever gets under debris, and a floating/drowning coffin if it gets into water. Bonus points if you end up tossed and upside down.
Actual life boats contain lots of foam so they stay buoyant even flooded with water. From what I can tell this capsule depends solely on the air inside to stay floating. I agree that that's probably a bad idea.
Maybe better than nothing, but certainly not the best money can buy
Looks basically like a tube-frame for a GT racecar, rebuilt as a sphere.
It has supplies of air and storage for a week of food.
But the feature list seems to lack any provision for handling human waste, or any kind of radio beacon.
It won't do you much good to survive the tsunami, get washed out to sea, and then sit idly on the waves for weeks after your food runs out because no one can find you or is even looking because you broadcast no long-range signal... Maybe I'm missing something?
Probably floats. It looks like at least 1.5 m in diameter, which means it displaces ~2 metric tonnes of water; so as long as it weighs less than that (~4000 lbs, including occupants) then it will float.
I think this idea of survival rather than living is rather an unfortunate characteristic of our time. People need to rewatch that german movie called "Knockin' On Heaven's Door". All you need is to go see the sea.
Underestimates the force of a true natural disaster. Sure this looks good rolling around on your lawn. But the only sure way to survive a natural disaster, is to get out of the way.
I'm thinking of a new version of the Twilight Zone episode The Shelter, except it's one of these floating around and everyone's trying to break in, break it open, etc.
