Exploring the Deep

"CUDAHY, Wis. — The deep is legendary for inky darkness. William Beebe, the first person to eye the abyss, called it perpetual night.

The darkness is matched by the intense pressure. Four miles down, it amounts to nearly five tons per square inch. That is too much even for Alvin, the most famous of the world’s tiny submersibles, which can take a pilot and two scientists down to a maximum depth of 2.8 miles.

But a new submersible is being built here, and even the process of construction seems a rebuke to the darkness. The work lighted up a cavernous factory with fireworks on a recent visit. Hot reds and oranges burst into showers of spark and flame as blistering metal began to yield to the demands of the submersible’s design.

“Amazing,” Tom Furman, a senior engineer at Ladish Forging, said after a big press bore down on an 11-foot disk of hot metal, making the delicate manipulation look as easy as rearranging a gargantuan pat of butter.

The new vehicle is to replace Alvin, which was the first submersible to illuminate the rusting hulk of the Titanic and the first to carry scientists down to discover the bizarre ecosystems of tube worms and other strange creatures that thrive in icy darkness..."

Read the entire article from the New York Times here.

"...the first to carry scientists down to discover the bizarre ecosystems of tube worms and other strange creatures that thrive in icy darkness"—indeed. I wonder what else they might find. Possibly a city or base where USOs routinely come and go?

And doesn't it make more sense to build a much smaller one remotely controlled? Should be cheaper, have the ability to go deeper, and the risk of lives would be negated—one small crack at four miles would be the end of everything and everyone on board.

Numerous possibilities, and it's about time we get more acquainted with this planet we live on.