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What's at the bottom of the ocean -- and how we're getting there

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    David Biello: So Victor,
    what have you been up to?
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    Victor Vescovo: That's the bottom
    of the Atlantic Ocean,
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    and I guess I read too much
    Jules Verne as a young boy,
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    and so for the last four years
    I've led a team to design and build
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    what is now the most advanced and deepest
    diving submersible on the planet,
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    and I have the ability
    to personally pilot it too.
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    So this was us in December of last year,
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    for the first time --
    the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
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    DB: And nobody's seen that before right?
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    That's just you.
    VV: No.
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    Well, now everybody else.
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    DB: Who does that?
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    Like --
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    VV: Well, I think everyone has seen
    the developments in the last 10, 15 years.
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    You have a bunch of people that have
    the means to explore outer space,
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    like SpaceX or Blue Origin --
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    those guys --
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    and we're going the other direction.
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    So it's a wonderful era
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    of private individuals
    spending their resources
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    to develop technologies
    that can take us to places
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    that have never been explored before,
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    and the oceans of the world is --
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    it's almost a cliché to say
    it's 70 percent of our entire planet,
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    and of that, 95 percent is unexplored.
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    So what we're trying to do
    with our expedition
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    is to build and prove out a submersible
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    that can go to any point
    on the bottom of the planet
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    to explore the 60 percent of this planet
    that is still unexplored.
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    DB: You need a pretty cool tool
    to do that, right?
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    VV: Right.
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    Now the tool is the submarine,
    the Limiting Factor.
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    It's a state-of-the-art vessel
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    supported by the support ship,
    the Pressure Drop.
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    It has a two-person titanium sphere,
    90 millimeters-thick,
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    that keeps it at one atmosphere,
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    and it has the ability to dive repeatedly
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    down to the very deepest
    point of the ocean.
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    DB: So like the SpaceX
    of ocean exploration?
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    VV: Yeah, it's kind of the SpaceX
    of ocean exploration,
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    but I pilot my own vehicles.
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    (Laughter)
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    DB: Are you going to take Elon or...?
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    VV: Yeah, I could take someone down there.
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    So, Elon, if you're listening,
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    I'll give you a ride in mine
    if you give me a ride in yours.
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    (Laughter)
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    DB: So tell us what it's like down there.
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    I mean, we're talking about a place
    where the pressure is so intense
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    that it's like putting
    an Eiffel Tower on your toe.
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    VV: It's more than that.
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    It's about 16,000 psi.
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    So the issue is that we have
    this titanium sphere
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    that allows us to go down
    to these extreme depths
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    and come up repeatedly.
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    That's never been done before.
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    The Challenger Deep has been dived twice,
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    once in 1960 and once in 2012
    by James Cameron,
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    and they went down and came back up
    and those were experimental craft.
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    This is the first commercially
    certified submersible
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    that can go up and down
    thousands of times with two people,
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    including a scientist.
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    We're very proud that we took down
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    the deepest-diving
    British citizen in history
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    just three weeks ago,
    Dr. Alan Jamieson of Newcastle University
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    who was down with us on the Java Trench.
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    DB: So, not too much freaks you out,
    is what I'm guessing.
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    VV: Well, it's a lot
    different to go diving.
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    If you're claustrophobic,
    you do not want to be in the submarine.
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    We go down quite a distance
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    and the missions typically last
    eight to nine hours in a confined space.
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    It's very different
    from the career I had previously
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    which was mountain climbing
    where you're in open spaces,
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    the wind is whipping, it's very cold.
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    This is the opposite.
    It's much more technical.
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    It's much more about precision
    in using the instruments
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    and troubleshooting
    anything that can go wrong.
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    But if something really
    goes wrong in the submersible,
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    you're not going to know it.
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    (Laughter)
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    DB: So you're afraid of leaks
    is what you're saying.
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    VV: Leaks are not good,
    but if it's a leak that's happening,
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    it's not that bad
    because if it was really bad
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    you wouldn't know it, again, but --
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    you know, fire in the capsule,
    that wouldn't be good either,
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    but it's actually a very safe submersible.
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    I like to say I don't trust
    a lot of things in life,
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    but I do trust titanium, I trust math
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    and I trust finite element analysis,
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    which is how you figure out
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    whether or not
    things like this can survive
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    these extraordinary
    pressures and conditions.
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    DB: And that sphere
    is so perfectly machined, right?
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    This is a truly unique craft.
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    VV: That was the real trick --
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    is actually building a titanium sphere
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    that was accurate
    to within .1 percent of machine.
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    Titanium is a hard metal to work
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    and a lot of people
    haven't figured it out,
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    but we were very fortunate.
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    Our extraordinary team was able
    to make an almost perfect sphere,
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    which when you're subjecting
    something to pressure,
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    that's the strongest
    geometry you can have.
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    When I'm in the submersible
    and that hatch closes,
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    I'm confident that I'm going
    to go down and come back up.
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    DB: And that's the thing
    you double-check --
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    that the hatch is closed?
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    VV: There are only two rules
    in diving a submarine.
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    Number one is close the hatch securely.
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    Number two is go back to rule number one.
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    DB: Alright so, Atlantic Ocean: check.
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    Southern Ocean: check.
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    VV: No one has ever dived
    the Southern Ocean before.
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    I know why.
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    It's really, really hostile.
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    The weather is awful.
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    The word collision comes to mind.
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    But we did that one, yes.
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    Glad that's over --
    DB: Yeah --
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    VV: Thank you.
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    (Applause)
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    DB: It's like you're racing through it.
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    And now the Indian Ocean,
    as Kelly mentioned.
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    VV: Yeah, that was three weeks ago.
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    We were fortunate enough
    to actually solve the mystery.
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    If someone had asked me three weeks ago,
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    "What is the deepest point
    in the Indian Ocean?" --
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    no one really knew.
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    There were two candidates,
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    one off of Western Australia
    and one in the Java Trench.
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    We have this wonderful ship
    with a brilliant sonar.
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    We mapped both of them.
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    We sent landers down
    to the bottom and verified.
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    It's actually in the center portion
    of the Java Trench,
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    which is where no one thought it was.
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    In fact, every time we've completed
    one of our major dives,
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    we have to run off
    to Wikipedia and change it
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    because it's completely wrong.
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    (Laughter)
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    DB: So it probably takes longer
    to get down there
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    than the time you're able
    to spend down there?
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    VV: No, we actually spend
    quite a bit of time.
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    I have four days
    of oxygen supply in the vessel.
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    If I'm down there for four days,
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    something's gone so wrong
    I'm probably not going to use it,
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    but it's about three hours down
    to the deepest part of the ocean
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    and then we can spend
    usually three or four hours
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    and then another three hours up.
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    So you don't want to stay in there
    for more than 10 or 11 hours.
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    It can get a little tight.
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    DB: Alright, so the bottom
    of the Indian Ocean.
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    And this is something that no one
    besides you has ever seen before --
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    VV: This is actually imagery
    from one of our robotic landers.
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    On the bottom right you can
    actually see a robust assfish --
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    that's what it's actually called.
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    (Laughter)
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    But you can see from the left
    a creature that's never been seen before.
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    It's actually a bottom-dwelling jellyfish
    called a stalked ascidian,
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    and none of them
    have ever looked like this before.
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    It actually has a small child
    at the bottom of its stalk,
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    and it just drifted across beautifully.
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    So every single dive we have gone on,
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    even though we're only down there
    for a couple of hours,
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    we have found three or four new species
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    because these are places that have
    been isolated for billions of years
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    and no human being has ever
    been down there to film them
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    or take samples.
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    And so this is extraordinary for us --
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    (Applause)
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    So what we are hoping --
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    the main objective of our mission
    is to build this tool.
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    This tool is a door,
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    because with this tool,
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    we'll be able to make
    more of them potentially
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    and take scientists down
    to do thousands of dives,
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    to open that door to exploration
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    and find things that we
    had no idea even existed.
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    DB: And so more people have been
    to space than the bottom of the ocean.
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    You're one of three.
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    You're going to up that number,
    you're going to give it away.
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    VV: Yeah, three people have dived
    to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
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    The USS Trieste in 1960
    with two individuals.
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    James Cameron in 2012
    with his Deep Sea Challenger --
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    thank you, Jim, great sub.
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    This is a third-generation technology.
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    We're not only going to try and go down,
    actually in two weeks,
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    but we're going to try
    and do it multiple times,
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    which has never been done before.
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    If we can do that,
    we'll have proven the technology
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    and that door will not just go open,
    it will stay open.
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    (Applause)
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    DB: Fantastic. Good luck.
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    VV: Thank you very much.
    DB: Thank you.
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    VV: Thank you all.
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    (Applause)
Title:
What's at the bottom of the ocean -- and how we're getting there
Speaker:
Victor Vescovo
Description:

Victor Vescovo is leading the first-ever manned expedition to the deepest point of each of the five oceans. In conversation with TED science curator David Biello, Vescovo discusses the technology that's powering the explorations -- a titanium submersible designed to withstand extraordinary conditions -- and shows footage of a never-before-seen creature taken during his journey to the bottom of the Indian Ocean.

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Video Language:
English
Team:
closed TED
Project:
TEDTalks
Duration:
07:51

English subtitles

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