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posted by martyb on Tuesday November 13 2018, @06:26AM   Printer-friendly
from the why-seven-seconds? dept.

Business Insider:

[...] 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.


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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by krishnoid on Tuesday November 13 2018, @07:30AM

    by krishnoid (1156) on Tuesday November 13 2018, @07:30AM (#761179)

    "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."

    Something something your mom's so stupid and so fat something something ...

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by ledow on Tuesday November 13 2018, @08:12AM (7 children)

    by ledow (5567) on Tuesday November 13 2018, @08:12AM (#761187) Homepage

    "and it's so deep that any communications from the submarine will take seven seconds to travel back up."

    Wow, the speed of light is a lot slower than I thought.

    Or they're talking bollocks.

    Given that light can circle the Earth 7 times in a second, there's nowhere on Earth that is more than 1/7th of a second out of communication when using radio, light or electricity.

    So what the hell are they using to communicate? Carrier pigeon?

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by maxwell demon on Tuesday November 13 2018, @08:34AM (4 children)

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Tuesday November 13 2018, @08:34AM (#761192) Journal

      Light (and radio) doesn't travel well through kilometers of seawater. What is relevant here is the speed of sound in seawater, which is about 1.5 km/s.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13 2018, @09:26AM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13 2018, @09:26AM (#761206)

        But it does through the attached fibre optic cable.

        • (Score: 2) by dltaylor on Tuesday November 13 2018, @01:18PM

          by dltaylor (4693) on Tuesday November 13 2018, @01:18PM (#761262)

          I've looked at the text and pictures on Triton Subs web site http://tritonsubs.com/hadal/ [tritonsubs.com] and do not see any evidence of a fibre optic tether.

          The Triton 36000/2 appears to be completely free of any surface support other than deployment, retrieval, and maintenance aboard the support vessel.

        • (Score: 1) by jjr on Tuesday November 13 2018, @01:42PM (1 child)

          by jjr (6969) on Tuesday November 13 2018, @01:42PM (#761268)

          Carrying kilometers of cable? I don't think so. Aside the weight it adds it could easily snap and break, or get tangled in rocks, so they will probably use ELF radio waves like current submarines do.

          • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 13 2018, @10:23PM

            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday November 13 2018, @10:23PM (#761473)

            If the 7 second quip is to be believed, they clearly are not using ELF radio but some form of sonic communication - like whalesong, but I'd bet they have a modulation scheme to keep it free-er from interference in the water column...

            --
            🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 2) by deadstick on Tuesday November 13 2018, @12:58PM

      by deadstick (5110) on Tuesday November 13 2018, @12:58PM (#761256)

      Sound, Professor.

    • (Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday November 13 2018, @07:57PM

      by edIII (791) on Tuesday November 13 2018, @07:57PM (#761432)

      So what the hell are they using to communicate? Carrier pigeon?

      Don't be silly. They're clearly EOL, and everyone knows that...

      --
      Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13 2018, @12:39PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13 2018, @12:39PM (#761250)

    I'll just leave this here [xkcd.com].

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Username on Tuesday November 13 2018, @01:47PM (3 children)

    by Username (4557) on Tuesday November 13 2018, @01:47PM (#761270)

    Unless hes going to get out of the sub and touch the sea floor.

    Also, Why? Why not just send an RoV? Strap a RTG to that thing and let it float around the sea floor for a decade.

    • (Score: 1) by ShadowSystems on Tuesday November 13 2018, @11:55PM

      by ShadowSystems (6185) <ShadowSystemsNO@SPAMGmail.com> on Tuesday November 13 2018, @11:55PM (#761505)

      I was going to post something similar.
      Millions of Humans have touched the sea floor, they just haven't been *alive* when they got there.
      Ship sinks, sailors drown, bodies hit the bottom, critters have a feast.
      Now if they had specified *living* Humans get to visit (not touch as that implies no longer being inside a pressure vessel that can keep them from getting turned into a bloody cloud of ichor) THEN they would be telling the truth.

      I'll call my little brother Cthulhu & tell him lunch is coming.
      He loves delivery!

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 14 2018, @08:43AM (1 child)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 14 2018, @08:43AM (#761663) Journal

      Why not just send an RoV?

      What would be the point of that? Seven second delay one-way, remember?

      • (Score: 2) by Username on Wednesday November 14 2018, @12:18PM

        by Username (4557) on Wednesday November 14 2018, @12:18PM (#761705)

        To see what's there. They got little rovers on mars, but sending one to the sea floor, that's just absurd eh?

  • (Score: 4, Funny) by VLM on Tuesday November 13 2018, @01:57PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 13 2018, @01:57PM (#761275)

    About to Touch the Deepest Corners ... for the First Time

    Penthouse letters, oceanography edition

    Thats hot. Probe me harder baby right in the trench.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by suburbanitemediocrity on Tuesday November 13 2018, @02:19PM (4 children)

    by suburbanitemediocrity (6844) on Tuesday November 13 2018, @02:19PM (#761293)

    Infinite dwell time on the bottom. 360x360 degree real time 8k low light enhanced video. Lower cost means more probes and coupled with live 360 video streaming, more eyeballs. Smaller, more easily deployable, less support infra structure, more room for sensors.

    I get the whole adventure thing, but not scientifically sound.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 13 2018, @10:31PM (3 children)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday November 13 2018, @10:31PM (#761481)

      Dropping temporary cable 6+ miles deep isn't terribly practical, ELF is very low bandwidth, so... the best they've got for command/control and data transfer is audio. They're quoting 7 seconds comm delay, the Moon is only 1.3 light seconds distant, so communicating with a deep ocean ROV would be problematic due to restricted bandwidth, long communication round trip times, and periodic data loss/distortion from audible interference. It's not like a UAV flying with satellite links, not as bad as a Mars probe, but getting there - they'd have to be prepared to lose a lot of ROVs while they learn the hazards of navigation, and they'd still need to recover the ROV to get high bandwidth photos and other massive data collections.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 2) by Username on Wednesday November 14 2018, @12:44PM (2 children)

        by Username (4557) on Wednesday November 14 2018, @12:44PM (#761715)

        Need a buoy with a long antenna. Then ROVs with a form of AI to drive them around. Have thousands of them at every depth, and they would communicate as a mesh network. So the ones at the very bottom would send their message to nearest one higher up, and so on and so forth until that message gets to the antenna; to the buoy. Then the buoy radios it to a satellite or to a ship, or land station.

        • (Score: 2) by Username on Wednesday November 14 2018, @12:48PM

          by Username (4557) on Wednesday November 14 2018, @12:48PM (#761718)

          ROV can be recalled, and they latch onto the antenna to be moved to another location, or charging if they aren't equipped with an rtg.

        • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 14 2018, @03:54PM

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday November 14 2018, @03:54PM (#761761)

          There are some very interesting phase change materials which go negatively buoyant at the surface and then positively buoyant when they reach depth, essentially riding the oceans' pressure/thermocline as a sort of unlimited source of free propulsion. A limited amount of electrical power generation is also possible while riding up and down the water column "for free" so, as long as you are operating in an area free of heavy currents and hazards to navigation (a strand of kelp or a fishing net can terminate your immortal ROV operation very quickly), then you could set up a mesh network of long dwelling ROVs covering an area. They're not going to be able to tow long antennae, or use high power transmission - even navigation will be a challenge: I'm thinking ROVs which have surfaced recently could relay GPS info via acoustic chirps - the acoustic signal delays are much more variable due to thermal and salinity gradients/boundaries, but should be good enough for rough stationkeeping in an area.

          Still, if you want to cover from the surface to a depth of 6 miles with short-hop communications in a mesh network, that will probably require thousands of ROVs, and much more development time/effort/money than a manned mission. The ROV fleet might be superior at info gathering, but I think it's on a 10-20 year development timeline whereas a manned mission could be executed in under 5.

          Simple: do both.

          --
          🌻🌻 [google.com]
  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13 2018, @08:58PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13 2018, @08:58PM (#761445)

    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

      by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday November 14 2018, @12:07AM (#761516)

      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.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13 2018, @10:58PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13 2018, @10:58PM (#761491)

    see https://fivedeeps.com/home/expedition/ [fivedeeps.com] for overview. there should be some live reporting

  • (Score: 2) by jasassin on Wednesday November 14 2018, @02:16AM

    by jasassin (3566) <jasassin@gmail.com> on Wednesday November 14 2018, @02:16AM (#761550) Homepage Journal

    I hope they don't wake the Kraken.

    --
    jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
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