submersible

Cameron and Branson race to bring urgent attention to oceans

Did famed filmmaker James Cameron just do for the oceans what scientific experts have struggled to do for decades?

When "Avatar" and "Titanic" director Cameron piloted his custom submersible, the Deepsea Challenger, to the bottom of the Mariana Trench yesterday and became the first person ever to make a solo dive to the world's deepest spot, he shined a crucial spotlight on the field of ocean exploration.

In recent years, scientists have been shouting from rooftops around the world that unless humanity puts more energy into studying our oceans, we are at real risk of … Read more

With Virgin Oceanic, Branson plans to get deep

Picking up where the late uber-adventurer Steve Fossett left off, Virgin impresario Richard Branson said today he wants to go to the deepest spot on Earth.

In a press conference today in Newport Beach, Calif., Branson announced his Virgin Oceanic and Five Dives initiatives, which could send a Virgin-branded deep-sea submersible with a single pilot to the deepest spots in each of the planet's five oceans.

Virgin Oceanic will use the DeepFlight Challenger, a submersible built by Hawkes Ocean Technologies of Point Richmond, Calif., for the dives.

The five dives are intended to be to the Pacific Ocean's … Read more

Oceans' salvation may lie in exploration

On January 23, 1960, two men, diving in a small deep-sea submersible, reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench, a spot about 200 miles southwest of Guam that, at 35,800 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, is the deepest point on Earth.

It was the first time humans had gone that deep, and when Navy Lt. Don Walsh and his co-pilot, Jacques Piccard, took the bathyscaphe Trieste all the way down, they surely must have felt like pioneers, the first of many who would make their way there.

On Thursday, at a gala event at the Press … Read more

Robot fish swims by doing the wave

A robot fish developed at the U.K.'s University of Bath features a unique method of propulsion--a single fin rippling along its belly like a wave. Bath engineers say Gymnobot might inspire lighter, more efficient robotic submersibles.

Recent robot fish, such as MIT's low-cost polymer fish, have flexible bodies, but Gymnobot is rigid save for a long undulating fin powered by twin crankshafts inside its body.

The design is a nod to freshwater knifefish, which can move forward and backward, and hover, by rippling an elongated ventral fin. The skin of the fin covers hundreds of fin rays … Read more

Audio slideshow: Unveiling the winged submersible

"The ocean needs more friends", says Graham Hawkes, who earlier this week unveiled the Deep Flight Super Falcon at the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. The craft is the newest and most advanced production-model undersea flying vehicle designed by Hawkes Ocean Technologies. (More information after the slideshow)

The submersible, which is 1/10th the weight of its conventional counterparts, seeks to provide new methods of exploring the oceans. Typically, undersea submersibles are very slow, and Hawkes designed this vehicle so that individuals might be able to more safely and comfortably explore the vast oceans of the world, … Read more

A personal deep-sea submersible takes flight

SAN FRANCISCO--For Graham Hawkes, the inventor of an entirely new class of deep-sea submersibles, a reporter's question on Wednesday--What kind of fish inspired his new flying craft?--was the perfect opportunity to vent about one of his chief frustrations with science.

"The thousands we don't know of," Hawkes answered, adding that when a world-class ichthyologist friend of his had said he'd never before seen many of the different species of fish they'd passed by while flying far underwater in one of his vessels, "I go, 'yeehah.'"

On Wednesday, Hawkes, his business partner … Read more

Submersible airplane, another DARPA 'must have'

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Strategic Technology Office is looking for a submersible aircraft design and invites you to come up with a concept.

Performance requirements call for an aircraft that can cover 1,850km by air or 185km by sea, or 22km underwater in eight hours or less. And this is not some miniature pool hopper; DARPA wants it to be able to carry a crew of eight and a 2,000lb payload.

Speculation on design suggests an old-school snorkel to provide air supply for the power plant while your flying fish is in submerged mode, … Read more