Titanic mission to map wreck in greatest-ever detail
A team comprising imaging experts, scientists, and historians is scheduled to depart for the Titanic this Friday, embarking on a mission to create the most detailed photographic documentation of the wreck ever undertaken.
BBC has been granted exclusive access to the expedition members in Providence, Rhode Island, as they finalize preparations before setting sail. Employing cutting-edge technology, the team plans to meticulously scan every part of the historic vessel, aiming to uncover new insights into its tragic sinking.
This marks the first commercial expedition to the Titanic since last year’s OceanGate incident, where five individuals lost their lives attempting to reach the sunken ship in a pioneering submersible. A joint memorial service is planned at sea to honor both these men and the 1,500 passengers and crew who perished with the Titanic in 1912.
Led by RMS Titanic Inc., based in Atlanta, Georgia, the expedition holds salvage rights and has retrieved approximately 5,500 artifacts from the site. However, this upcoming mission is primarily reconnaissance-focused, utilizing two robotic vehicles to capture millions of high-resolution images and create a comprehensive 3D model of the wreckage.
“Our goal is to achieve unprecedented clarity and precision in our visualization of the wreck,” explained co-expedition lead David Gallo.
Weather permitting, it should spend 20 days above the wreck, which lies in 3,800m (12,500ft) of water.
It will be a poignant few weeks for all involved.
One of the five who died on the OceanGate sub was Frenchman Paul-Henri (“PH”) Nargeolet. He was the director of research at RMS Titanic Inc. and was due to lead this expedition.
A plaque will be laid on the seabed in his honor.
“It’s tough but the thing about exploration is that there’s an urge and a drive to keep going. And we’re doing that because of that passion PH had for continuous exploration,” explained friend and historian Rory Golden, who will be “chief morale officer” of Dino Chouest.
There can be few people on Earth who don’t know the story of the supposedly unsinkable Titanic and how it was holed by an iceberg, east of Canada, on the night of 15 April 1912.
There are countless books, movies and documentaries about the event.
But although the wreck site has been the target of repeated study since its discovery in 1985, there still isn’t what could be described as a definitive map.
And while the bow and stern sections of the broken ship are reasonably well understood, there are extensive areas of the surrounding debris field that have received only cursory inspection.
Two six-tonne remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) intend to put that right. One will be fitted with an array of ultra-high-definition optical cameras and a special lighting system; the other will carry a sensor package that includes a lidar (laser) scanner.
Together, they’ll track back and forth across a 1.3km-by-0.97km section of the seafloor.
Evan Kovacs, who’s in charge of the imaging program, says his camera systems should produce millimeter resolution.
“If all of the weather gods, the computer gods, the ROV gods, the camera gods – if all those gods align, we should be able to capture Titanic and the wreck site in as close to digital perfection as you can get. You would be able to quite literally count grains of sand,” he told BBC News.
There’s huge anticipation for what the magnetometer aboard the sensor ROV might produce. This is a first for Titanic.
The instrument will detect all the metals at the wreck site, even material that is buried out of sight in the sediment.
“It would be an absolute dream to determine what has happened with Titanic’s bow below the seafloor,” explained geophysics engineer Alison Proctor.
“Hopefully, we’ll be able to deduce whether or not the bow was crushed when it hit the seabed, or if it might actually extend down well into the sediment intact.”
The team wants to review the state of some well-known objects in the debris field, such as the big boiler which spilled out as the opulent steamliner broke in half.
There’s the desire, too, to locate items thought to have been sighted on previous visits. These include an electric candelabra, which in its day would have been a fascinating curio, as well as the possibility of a second Steinway grand piano.
The musical instrument’s wooden surround would have long since decayed away, but the cast iron plate, or frame, that held the strings should still be there, perhaps even some of the keys.
“For me, it’s the passengers’ possessions, especially their bags, that are of greatest interest,” said Tomasina Ray, who curates the collection of Titanic artifacts held by the company.
“It’s their belongings – if we are able to retrieve more in the future – that help flesh out their stories. For so many passengers, they are just names on a list, and it’s a way to keep them meaningful.”
This will be RMS Titanic Inc’s ninth visit to the wreck site. The firm has attracted controversy in recent years with its stated desire to try to bring up part of the Marconi radio equipment that transmitted the distress calls on the night of the sinking.
It won’t happen on this expedition but if and when it does occur, it would mean extracting an object from inside the disintegrating ship.
For many, Titanic is the gravesite of the 1,500 who died that night in 1912 and should not be touched, its interior especially.
“We get that and understand it,” said company researcher James Penca.
“We dive to Titanic to learn as much as we can from her; and like you should with any archaeological site, we do it with the utmost respect. But to leave her alone, to just let her passengers and crew be lost to history – that would be the biggest tragedy of all.”
