Return to the Titanic: The Third Manned Mission

Titanic Bow Image

This Titanic Bow image was on the front cover of Sea Technology for the featured article.

By Kevin Hardy

As seen in Sea Technology

New High-Powered Lighting, Dual Soviet Submarines, the Eerie Stillness of a Famous Wreck Promise to Bring Stunning Deep Ocean Images to IMAX Movie Audiences

Why go back?

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Alvin allowed us the first up-close, in-person views of the remains of the R.M.S. Titanic. Those trips in 1986 – 75 years after her tragic sinking – brought back startling pictures of rusticles, the wine bottle-littered debris field, the twisted and broken hulk.

The second series of manned dives – this time with IFREMER’s deep submersible Nautile – brought back the first relics from the Edwardian-Age English ship.

Why go back again?

“Imaging,” said Emory Kristof, veteran underwater photographer for the Washington, D.C.- based National Geographic Society. “This was the underwater Mount Everest for imaging technology. We got to do it and do it right.”

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