Fantastic Voyages
Ocean Exploration Past and Present, Real and Imagined
The sea has been a tremendous source of storytelling and real-time adventure tales since the beginning of narrative. Almost every culture has its archetypal maritime story — from the Viking Sagas to the Odyssey to the voyages of Sinbad the Sailor. There are stories of sea goddesses that have empowered religious cults and artistic expression — Mazu in China for example, or Mami Wata in Africa. There are sea-based entertainments such as Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series or Hergé’s Tintin or, more recently, David Masiel’s 2182kHz or Carsten Jensen’s We, The Drowned — both highly recommended stories made more powerfully compelling through their ocean setting.
The great futuristic title, of course, is 20,000 Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne, the story of Professor Pierre Aronax, a marine biologist who, with two colleagues, joins an expedition to track down a mysterious sea monster that has been sighted by various ships and damaged an ocean liner. The monster is, of course, the Nautilus, a secret sub-marine vessel of a size never before imagined and sailed by one Captain Nemo, a self-exiled scientist in pursuit of knowledge and independent of the confines of government, politics, and the other restrictions of civilization. Nemo takes Aronax on a fantastic voyage beneath the sea where they visit coral reefs of pure and undiluted beauty, find remnant fleets of ancient wrecks on the ocean floor, and even witness the encrusted architecture of the fabled lost city of Atlantis. These things were in their time of writing the essence of myth or the fabrications of wild imagination. In the end, the intrepid explorers escape, while Nemo and Nautilus disappear into the enigma of the Moskstraumen whirlpool off Norway and thence into the annals of literature.
The Nautilus pre-visions the submarines we know today, large silent ships with full communities aboard, able to stay submerged for long periods, to visit the bottom of the ocean floor, to transit routinely under polar ice, and to unleash an arsenal of a demonstrative power that not even Verne could invent. Similarly, underwater devices have become important tools for global ocean research, for mapping and data collecting and documenting places and phenomena that have been considered heretofore perfectly inaccessible. There are manned submersibles, deep sea vehicles, and remote-controlled drones that have explored the deepest deep, identified millions of new marine species, and even discovered new ecosystems and new forms of life — all now universally available to a world audience through underwater digital equipment, television, IMAX films, and real-time streaming into classrooms and onto your desktop computer or hand-held device almost everywhere.
But what of future ocean voyages?
Well, here’s one that pushes the limits of knowledge, as did Jules Verne. Researchers at the Center for Autonomous Systems at Virginia Tech University in the United States are designing and testing new forms of underwater gliders with advanced control technology and neutral buoyancy that will maximize the utility and efficiency of these devices as key tools for underwater exploration in very unexpected places. One fantastic application might take such a glider into space, to the three moons of Jupiter, thought by many scientists today as a possible location for the discovery of extraterrestrial life.
There is much additional speculative research. Various proposals have been put forward to explore these planets in elliptical orbit some 628 to 928 million kilometers from Earth. One such called for nuclear-powered “cyro-bots” that would melt their way through outer ice layer to release “hydro-bots,” autonomous underwater gliders possibly built on the work of the Virginia Tech center and others. In 2012, the European Space Agency selected an orbiter probe expedition to be launched in 2022 in an Ariane 5 rocket to orbit and maneuver around Jupiter and her moons, arriving in 2030 to investigate the subsurface water reservoirs; to conduct topographical, geological and compositional mapping of the surfaces; to study of the physical properties of the icy crusts; and to characterize of the internal mass distribution, dynamics and evolution of the interiors. The focus will be “on the chemistry essential to life…”
Looking forward, far away; maybe we’ll find Captain Nemo already there.
PETER NEILL is founder and director of the World Ocean Observatory and is author of “The Once and Future Ocean: Notes Toward a New Hydraulic Society.” He is also the host of World Ocean Radio, a weekly podcast addressing ocean issues, upon which this blog is inspired.
LEARN MORE
- “Alternative Energy Sources Could Support Life on Europa” by Dirk Schulze-Makuch and Louis N. Irwin (2001)
- Cited Works of Literature
< Viking Sagas
< The Aubrey Maturin series by Patrick O’Brian
< Tintin by Hergé
< 2182kHz by David Masiel
< We, The Drowned by Carsten Jensen’s
< 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
