Research Vehicle Reaches the Bottom of the Ocean

timothy found BBC coverage of the voyage of the Nereus, which on May 31 dove to the bottom of the Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench. Only two vehicles have accomplished this feat before, the last 11 years ago. "The unmanned vehicle is remotely operated by pilots aboard a surface ship via a lightweight tether. Its thin, fibre-optic tether to the research vessel Kilo Moana allows the submersible to make deep dives and be highly manoeuvrable. Nereus can also be switched into a free-swimming, autonomous vehicle. ... The Challenger Deep... is the deepest abyss on Earth at 11,000m-deep, more than 2km (1.2 miles) deeper than Mount Everest is high. At that depth, pressures reach 1,100 times those at the surface."

Comments

Are you ready kids?

[Anonymous Coward]

Aye aye, Captain!

Re:Are you ready kids?

[Your Pal Dave]

I can't hear you!

Re:Are you ready kids?

[Anonymous Coward]

AYE AYE, CAPTAIN!

undersea progress

[codename.matrix]

Wow, that is great. Hope they find some interesting stuff down there. Maybe some animals we didn't even know existed. Next up: Building the Seaquest

Re:undersea progress

[Yvan256]

You're asking a lot there, buddy. Don't you think they got enough pressure as it is?

Re:undersea progress

[RuBLed]

Couple that with the fact that we're already scraping the bottom of the barrel here.

Re:undersea progress

[Kagura]

I've walked on the bottom of the ocean before. The picture's not me, just an example. ;)

All I want to know..

[nanospook]

Do they have a good pizza/wing place down there?

Re:All I want to know..

[Scutter]

Do they have a good pizza/wing place down there?

No, but there's a Starbuck's.

Only Two Vehicles

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus all the boats that sank.

Re:I wonder if my great^8 grandkids

[QuantumG]

Men had balls in the 60s.

Re:I wonder if my great^8 grandkids

[The_mad_linguist]

Oh yeah? Well, I'm going to be the first man to set foot on the surface of the sun!

Re:I wonder if my great^8 grandkids

[__aaclcg7560]

Men had steel balls in the 60s.

Fixed that for you.

Re:Nice, but what does it do?

[tsa]

I would love to see Google Street View of the ocean floor. Who knows what we'll find down there... And it's easy for Google too; no complaints about privacy breach.

Re:What They Aren't Telling Us...

[artor3]

That'll make for one traumatic moment when the lead mermaid tries to surface and bursts open from the tremendous drop in pressure. I don't think my kids would want to see that one.

Re:Nice, but what does it do?

[MichaelSmith]

I suspect it would be like the time there was a volcano in New Zealand and somebody there set up a web cam people elsewhere could monitor it. Somebody in a different hemisphere took a look and because the scene was black assumed the surrounding area had blown up. Of course they were looking at night and had forgotten the time difference.

Re:I wonder if my great^8 grandkids

[gringofrijolero]

After getting through the corona, that should feel downright refreshing.

Re:I wonder if my great^8 grandkids

[The_mad_linguist]

That's why I'd do it at night.

Re:Nice, but what does it do?

[clarkkent09]

And it's easy for Google too; no complaints about privacy breach.

They are getting sued by SCO though, for violating their patent for sinking to the lowest depths possible.

Re:Nice, but what does it do?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sharks *are* fish, you insensitive biped!

Re:I wonder if my great^8 grandkids

[techno-vampire]

Are you sure that's the only time men got down there? I'd not be surprised if the Seaview didn't manage it at least once. After all, that's exactly the type of thing she was built for.

Re:Cable? Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations - you managed to be so wrong that you were modded Funny.

Already been done?

[Lost Penguin]

Didn't the Titanic already make this journey? /Oh, you meant "and returned". //My bad...