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When computerized rebreathers are finally developed and on sale, how useful will they be? Sport, yes; but how far will work divers (who seem to me to be more able to make use of the long durations of dive that some of these sets provide) be able to use the resulting freedom without running foul of infinity laws tying divers to air lines and all sorts making it nearly as heavy and cumbersome as the old-style standard gear? (When the North Sea (off Europe between England and Scandinavia)) oil boom started, the British government passed a work diving law, and I read in a newspaper that working biologists had to fight #@%$ hard in Parliament to be allowed to continue using scuba without air lines and lifelines. It seems that a time is coming in work diving analogous to the habit of overcautious councils slapping on universal 30mph speed limits everywhere without thinking whether they are needed, until many motorists say "the law is an ass" and drive by the road conditions. Likewise I wonder whether the line-less freedom of the scuba, which Cousteau gave us, will have (in work diving) have to be fought for all over again, e.g. by when it is suitable practically using mixture rebreathers without lines, systematically ignoring the law until the law is repealed or changed [1]. I suspect that the only reason why laws "you must have a line and a linesman" were not extended to all diving including sport diving, was the size and weight of the sport diving trade. Lines can be a @#$% causing drag and delay and getting tangled in things. Likeways I feel that laws saying that work divers can't breathe heliox from scuba, only from lines, don't deserve to be respected when practical conditions advise the opposite. (How much of this is a fear that helium gas supplying companies will lose profit if methods that use less heliox per heliox dive become common?) What is the state of the law about work divers breathing nitrox from scuba or from a lifeline? [1] A silly-sounding but true example of a law which became an ass, was when (before practical electric lights were invented) a law was passed that a railway engine must have an oil lamp on the front for safety (i.e. not a pathetic glimmer of a lantern with one tallow candle in); OK for a while, until a railway company was prosecuted for running a railway engine without an oil lamp although it had an adequate front electric light on.
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