[...] In December, explorer and investor Victor Vescovo, along with scientist Alan Jamieson from Newcastle University, are embarking on a groundbreaking mission more than 6.5 miles under the waves. The two are heading out in a new $48 million dollar submarine system to better map the bottom of the world's five oceans.
They're calling the mission, which will be the first time people travel to the bottom of each of the world's seas, "Five Deeps."
"Our depth of ignorance about the oceans is quite dramatic," Vescovo said as he introduced the mission to an audience in New York. "Four of the oceans have never even had a human being go to their bottom. In fact, we don't even know with great certainty where the bottom of the four are."
First up on the five-dive trip will be the Puerto Rico Trench, the deepest point in the Atlantic Ocean. It's a spot no human has ever explored, and it's so deep that any communications from the submarine will take seven seconds to travel back up.
The team believes it's possible to find a location deeper than the Challenger Deep.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13 2018, @08:58PM (1 child)
No human being has touched it? I'm pretty sure even the deepest corners of the ocean have felt the effects of pollution or other symptoms of our presence.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday November 14 2018, @12:07AM
That's not pessimism, that's being real.
Pessimism would be selling all you stocks because they're about to wake up Godzilla and friends, who will then stage battles ravaging all continents to settle who's got the loftiest underwater pad.
Which would arguably be awesome, in a way.