The Moon vs The Ocean

I can’t imagine in 1953 French scientist/engineer Dimitri Rebikoff, could have imagined that his project “poddle” would go on and spawn a whole industry of subsea exploration/operations.

The US expanded on his work in 1960 and developed an ROV to assist in recovering atomic bombs along the Spanish coast.

Here we are 64 years later, and the technology that Dimitri Rebikoff established is being used to perform work in areas that it’s just not safe for humans to dive too and to explore parts of the ocean than have never been seen before.

Dimitri Rebikoff, started work on his project 11 years after the first rocket was launched that could reach space, and 16 years before man reached the moon.

As of the year 2000 99% of the oceans floor where unexplored. The deepest part of the ocean is the Mariana Trench, located in the western Pacific Ocean, It reaches a maximum-known depth of 10,994 metres (6.8 miles) For comparison: if Mount Everest were dropped into the trench at this point, its peak would still be approximately 1mile underwater

As the ROV technology has evolved over the years in has enabled us to learn about the habits of sharks, whether that is how they hunt/mate or migration patterns to assisting in finding some of the lost treasures of the sea.

This has spawned other pieces of marine equipment such as AUV’s/Gliders and USVs which has allowed scientists the freedom to not have to be out on the water with the equipment but to program what they require and send this equipment out to do the job and hopefully return home with all the data.

There is certainly an interest from the general public to know more about the planet they live on and the oceans they swim/sail in as is seen by the success of BBC Ones show blue planet, which generates viewing figures of approximately 10.6million, which is 500,000 more than the BBC’s largest production Strictly Come Dancing.

So the question I have is why we know more about the surface of the Moon and even Mars, yet we have only explored 5% of the oceans, especially when the ocean covers more than 70% of the planet’s surface.

I hope that with the continued development of technology and the increase in interest from Mr & Mrs Bloggs and future generations that we turn our attention away from the sky (albeit for a minute) and focus on the thing that has been in front of us all these years, the deep blue sea.