Barely a week since successfully completing sea trials after a three year hiatus, the venerable research sub Alvin is already earning back the $42 million in hardware upgrades and engineering retrofits it’s received—showing off its spacious new three-crew cabin with a quick dive to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. But this is no pleasure cruise.
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In some ways, exploring the depths of the ocean is every bit as technically challenging as investigating the surface of Mars. In fact, we have a far more detailed understanding of the Red Planet than we do of what goes on under the sea. But this new, affordable manned submersible aims to open undersea exploration to everybody—not just the handful of wealthy nations that currently have the technology.
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NASA’s got all kinds of cred when it comes to space, but the very depths of our own planet’s oceans aren’t that much different. So who better to take a deep dive and drudge up the first images of the watery world beneath Antarctica’s ancient glaciers? More »
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