President Bush may talk about a plan to Mars, but Bruce Jones thinks there is still a healthy thirst for exploration into underwater worlds on our own planet. After growing up with a grandfather in the marine construction①business, Jones quickly got a feel for the water. He started diving at age 9 and, by the 1980s, began offering advice for those interested in the submarine②business. By 1993, he was running his own company, U.S. Submarines, which designs and builds submarines for others.
Jones has $40 million spent in building a hotel where the most expensive rooms will be 50 feet under the sea off Eleuthera Island in the Bahamas. Unlike the Jules Undersea Lodge — the only undersea hotel now, just off the coast of Key Largo, Fla. — guests at the Poseidon won’t need to put on a wet suit to their rooms. They also won’t need to worry about changing pressure levels since the rooms will be kept at above-surface pressure. Instead, they can move easily to their $1,500-a-night underwater rooms by escalator③.
“I think there are a large number of people who would be interested,” said Jones, “including anyone who is looking for a different experience.”
Each room will feature strong walls that look out onto coral④gardens. There will be controls in each room that guests can use to change the lighting of the underwater worlds outside their windows and to provide food to fish swimming just outside. It sounds exciting— but will it happen? It’s hard to say.
“By now I envisioned⑤we’d have whole underwater cities,” Cooper said. “It’s about time some of these visions became reality.”
Notes:
① marine construction 海洋建筑
② submarine adj. 海下的
③ escalator n. 自动梯
④ coral n. 珊瑚
⑤ envision v. 展望
1. The first paragraph takes President Bush for example in order to ______.
A. praise President Bush’s plan to Mars
B. humorously introduce the main subject to readers
C. support President Bush’s plan to Mars
D. show Bruce Jones is against President Bush’s plan
2. According to the text, who had a great effect on Bruce Jones?
A. His father. B. His friends. C. His grandfather D. His grandmother
3. According to Bruce Jones’s undersea hotel, we know that ______.
A. fish outside can be seen through the hotel’s walls
B. the hotel has been built and came into use
C. it will be easy to swim into the underwater rooms
D. visitors will have to wear wet suits against water
4. According to Cooper’s words, his attitudes towards the underwater hotels are ______.
A. disappointed B. critical C. objective D. hopeful
