Unmanned sub touches deepest part of world's ocean

Re:Unmanned sub touches deepest part of world's ocean by jmatt on Wednesday June 03, 2009 @04:30PM (#640353)

I'm glad to see new efforts in exploring deep oceans. It's amazing to me how little effort is spent exploring our own planet. We know very little about the deep parts of the ocean.

The world has had the technology to go there since 1960 when a two man crew in the Trieste went to the Challenger Deep. I think the reason new subs don't have a crew is because it's cost prohibitive. Since the median ocean depth is 1/3rd of the depth... most of these subs aren't engineered for extremes. My guess is the next time a crew goes there it'll be funded by some rich explorer looking for a challenge (Richard Branson, etc). Hopefully he'll make some real innovations and share them with the community. In the meanwhile it's good to see a new robotic sub visiting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathyscaphe_Trieste

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenger_Deep

EDIT: Added a few sentences.

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Re:Unmanned sub touches deepest part of world's ocean by jonah on Wednesday June 03, 2009 @09:05PM (#640766)

And at $8 million, quite inexpensive compared to space exploration.

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Re:Unmanned sub touches deepest part of world's ocean by krschultz on Thursday June 04, 2009 @09:45AM (#641343)

Unfortunately the guy who was doing this was Steve Fosset, he commissioned several submarines the likes of which no one had ever seen before but after his death no one has really picked up the ball.

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