Is it possible to bring titanic to the surface

It had an array of cameras looking forward and down, and strobes and incandescent lighting to illuminate the ocean floor. This new tool, built largely with commercially available components and specially developed software and cable systems, was designed to enhance our ability to explore the ocean floor.

Robert Ballard, leader of the Deep Submergence Laboratory which developed Argo, is a geologist who spent most of his year research career at WHOI investigating the Mid-Ocean Ridge, the largest single feature on earth's surface, some 45, miles long and covering more than 20 percent of the globe. Since the first detailed exploration of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, part of the system of ridges that make up the Mid-Ocean Ridge, began in and in which Dr.

Ballard was a participant , scientists had managed by to accumulate only miles of data in 12 years. In the first scheduled scientific use of Argo in December , Ballard and his colleagues covered nearly miles of the East Pacific Rise in just 20 days. With its enhanced images and ability to operate in the dangerous undersea mountain ranges, Argo found many more uses. Geologists and geophysicists were able to explore large areas and inspect smaller features at a closer range.

Biologists conducted surveys of seafloor populations. Geochemists used Argo for studies in the hydrothermal vents where chemicals spew forth from deep within the earth to support unique forms of marine life. Argo made another historic discovery in June when it located the sunken World War II German battleship Bismarck in nearly 15, feet of water off the coast of France. At-sea tests with Jason in altered that plan, and the two vehicles are now used separately.

The original Argo was retired in the s. Today, the Institution has improved on this technology, and uses several uniquely designed towed vehicles for oceanographic missions across the globe. It was designed to work primarily in extremely rugged volcanic terrain to depths of 20, feet, within reach of 98 percent of the ocean floor. As a result, its various subsystems were mounted within a heavy-duty steel frame capable of withstanding a jarring head-on collision with vertical outcrops of rock.

It's motto: "Takes a lickin but keeps on clickin. Unlike many other survey systems at the time, ANGUS maintained continuous visual contact with the seabed, flying 30 to 50 feet above the bottom. Contained within its foot-long frame were three large-capacity mm color cameras, each having feet of film a total of 3, photos on a single lowering.

Each camera had a different focal length lens, and collectively the three cameras photograph a swath of sea floor feet in width. Mounted next to the cameras was a temperature measurement system that transmitted the temperature of the water through which the sled was passing to the surface. Also on the frame was a down-looking sonar which sent to the surface the height of the sled above the bottom, permitting the person "flying" or maneuvering the vehicle aboard ship to maintain the desired flying altitude by letting cable out or reeling it in.

Strobe lights used to illuminate the bottom permit ANGUS to be flown higher and to "see" further than conventional deep-sea photo systems. Large area photos are typically taken at second intervals providing a generous photo overlap. Once a lowering had been completed, generally 12 hours or so, the film was processed aboard ship using warm sea water for analysis within four hours. Such a quick turnaround time permitted the scientists to monitor the survey in progress and modify their track lines accordingly.

ANGUS was the only vehicle used in both the discovery expedition in , and the return mission to the Titanic in National Deep Submergence Facility. The new legislation will require trips carried out by U. In any case, the opportunity for tourists to see the infamous wreck is slipping away. Scientists believe the shipwreck could disappear by In August of last year, divers from Triton Submarines visited the shipwreck for the first time in 14 years and found much of it decaying.

Divers discovered that the wreck has become a new home for marine life. Their photos reveal that the ship has significantly deteriorated due to deep-sea currents and metal-eating bacteria. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. It will take a long time before the ship completely disappears, but the decomposition of the wreck is to be expected and is a natural process," Patrick Lahey, president and co-founder of Triton Submarines, told Business Insider.

Since Lahey had never visited the wreck before, he couldn't gauge wreck's condition based on personal observations. But many experts agree that the ship looks very different than it did during previous expeditions. Deep-sea currents, salt corrosion, and metal-eating bacteria are whittling away the wreckage, which lies more than 2 miles under the ocean surface.

Microbial biologist Lori Johnston told USA Today that much of the deterioration comes from a group of bacteria, named Halomonas titanicae after the ship, which are "working symbiotically to eat, if you will, the iron and the sulfur. Henrietta Mann, the scientist who co-discovered these bacteria in , told Time that based on this new expedition footage, the Titanic has only 30 years left before it disappears.

The speed of the Titanic's deterioration increases as the ship's upper levels crumble, Mann said. One such collapse demolished one of the wreck's most famous sections: Captain Edward Smith's quarters. Now, the room and the bathtub can no longer be seen — they're lost in the inaccessible depths of the wreck. The recent Triton submarine footage will be used in an upcoming documentary film by Atlantic Productions.

It won't be the first high-tech reconstruction of the Titanic wreckage — this degree panorama went on display in Leipzig, Germany two years ago.

Such is the case with the on-again, off-again notions of raising the Titanic, which prompted a great deal of discussion shortly after the release of director James Cameron's Oscar-winning epic Titanic.

Reclaiming the famed White Star Line shipwreck was even tackled in the motion picture Raise The Titanic , which suffered the same fate as the vessel, mercilessly sinking at the box office. And there's been no shortage of geniuses out there who had their own solutions on how to bring the ship back to the surface. After several trips back to the drawing board, it turns out that raising the Titanic would be about as futile as rearranging the deck chairs on the doomed vessel.

After a century on the ocean floor, Titanic is apparently in such bad shape it couldn't withstand such an endeavor for a variety of reasons. And then there are those arguing that regardless of how ship-shape Titanic is today, committing to such a task would be highly unethical. Titanic was a big deal when it launched April 10, , on its maiden voyage from Southhampton, England to New York.

Boasting a length of feet, a height of 25 stories and weighing 46, tons, it was the largest mobile vessel ever built at the time.

Four days later, Titanic struck an iceberg resulting in more than 1, dead with scarcely more than survivors. The wreckage on the ocean bed lay undetected for decades until