Living and Working Underground As weapons become more and more powerful and harder to resist there is a trend to move things underground. Whether this trend is actually related to weapons development, terrorism or something else, is actually hard to prove. It is easy enough when you are looking at a cave in Afghanistan that was occupied by rebels because you know they were using it for concealment and protection, but why would businesses in western countries decide to move underground? If you ask them, they might say it is easier to control the temperature or it saves on heating bills or even that it protects buildings from storms, but would this be the real reason? Right now, in Kansas City, a company has built the world's biggest underground complex. This must be great for real estate agents who can now sell land on the surface and land under the surface, giving them twice the commissions in some instances. The underground complex I am talking about is about five million square feet. It will house over fifty businesses, some of them international. The name of this underground industrial park is Sub Tropolis. It sounds like something out of a science fiction magazine. Is this a trend other industrial parks might follow? One good thing about this type of building is that it leaves the surface free from the visual blight industrial parks create. Singapore needs land. They built one of the longest road tunnels in the world to free up surface land for development. The tunnel is about 20 km or approximately 13.5 miles long. Smith College is moving some of its library 32 feet below the surface of the Mount Holyoke Range. People are beginning to think about moving underground in some areas. Some countries are very crowded and if people moved underground, the land on the surface would become available for growing food, thus helping to alleviate the food shortage in some areas. Being underground is nothing new for human beings, after all we were living in caves in the early days of our existence. Many of the military attached to the Minute Man Missile units lived in underground silos for a good part of the day and during an emergency, many for several days. It is fascinating to explore these empty facilities. I have never done it personally but I have seen photos. There were many large rooms down there including mess halls and areas with bunks. I could also cite a simple underground area many of us use without even thinking about being underground, that is the subway. How many of us live in a big city where the most efficient travel is by underground railway? We might spend two hours or more a day riding in a subway car. This is figured on one hour each way. This can increase dramatically where there is a problem, believe me I know. I remember being trapped in a subway car in New York City, in the tunnel that connects the borough of Queens to Manhattan. It was a hot summer day and the temperature in the tunnel was well over 100 degrees. I know because the electric was off in the train and that meant no air conditioning. We were trapped from about 5:00 PM to nearly 10:00 PM. People were passing out. I must have lost ten pounds that day, talk about dehydration. Not every underground facility is meant for human habitation. The Yucca Mountain Project was approved in 2002 by the Senate. It allows storing nuclear waste in Nevada, under the Yucca Mountains in salt deposits. Salt deposits are felt to be the most stable place for this type of storage. The real problem here is the waste remains radioactive for 100,000 years or more and the Earth itself could change. Tremors could cause the waste to leak out as the barrels or containers are crushed by falling debris. Another problem is some future generation may open up the deposits without knowing what is in there. We would have to devise some sort of warning that would last for hundreds of thousands of years and still be able to be read and understood. Funding was discontinued for the project in 2011. Even the Congress of the United States had an underground hideaway. It was built in secret under a famous resort named Greenbrier. The construction took place under the guise of improvements but no one seemed to notice the enormous amount of cement going into the project or so it was thought. The construction began in 1959 and the facility was being built as cold war protection for congress against Soviet nukes. We even hollowed out mountains, such as Mt. Weather and Raven Rock Mountain. Greenbrier didn't work because so many local people knew about it and if you asked around enough, you could find out almost anything about it. This was proven when two federal agents went to town and posed as hunters. There is at least one more thing to be said about having underground complexes. It is much easier to control who goes in and out. Think of an underground industrial park that has five large elevators servicing it. If you post people at these elevators and check everyone's identity, you pretty much have the complex under control. There are no fences to climb over or doors to sneak in. But everything is not rosy. I sure wouldn't want to be in one of these if a disaster strikes. Imagine a fire or explosion down there, it would be much worse than if it were on the surface where it would be easier to get out and the air might not become as contaminated. Being underground too long will probably create some psychological problems for some people. I am not just talking about people with claustrophobia, although it could turn out to eventually be a problem for them also. Psychologists have said living and working underground could eventually have a negative effect on many of us. Some of them claim humans have many phobias they aren’t aware of and some of them will rear their ugly heads during long stays under the earth. Experts have said submariners on long missions have problems with their leisure time since there is not a lot to do. This probably wouldn’t be true for underground living if things were planned properly. Not being able to look out a window and see the outside might be troubling for some on long stays however.
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