Sub expedition to the Titanic opens for applicants
Applications are now open for a select few ‘citizen explorers’ to join submarine expeditions to survey the historic wreck of the Titanic.
The next expedition to the wreckage of the Titanic will begin in 2022. Given the massive scale of the wreck and the debris field, the missions will continue over the next several years to document the wreckage fully.
The expeditions are led by OceanGate Expeditions and applications are open to everyone but the once-in-a- lifetime experience comes with a hefty price tag of $250,000 for those people selected to join the teams of scientists on the missions.
Selected expedition volunteers will actively support the team to collect images, video, laser scans, and sonar data to provide an objective baseline of the current condition of the wreck. This baseline will be used to assess the rate of decay over time and help to document and preserve the historic maritime site.
The ship is steadily disintegrating due to bacteria and deep sea currents, and as a result, the Titanic may not last another hundred years, with many predicting that it may only be around for a few more decades.
Aboard the surface supply ship, team members will help with navigation, maintenance, and catalogue once-in-a-lifetime historical finds. Aboard the submersible, they will descend to the ocean floor and soar over the wreck, skimming the ship’s deck as cameras and lasers create a detailed 3D model.
“It took six years to develop, and stress test the world’s most advanced five-person submersible, Titan. We are proud to have engineered and deployed the first successful use of sensor- instrumented carbon fiber in a deep diving human- occupied submersible,” says Stockton Rush, OceanGate co-founder and submersible pilot.
