Finding the Titanic: How Images from the Ocean Depths Fueled Interest in the Doomed Ship
The submersible Argo was named for the vessel that carried Jason in the Greek myth about Jason’s quest for the golden fleece Along with Argo Ballard and his crew were also using a device called ANGUS short for Acoustically Navigated Geological Underwater Survey Towed by the Knorr ANGUS carried cameras it could use while hovering above the ocean floor Unlike with Argo however Ballard and others on the surface ship could not see the images right away First they had to retrieve ANGUS from the ocean and then develop its film But the pictures it took provided information about large areas of the ocean’s bottom If Argo could find the Titanic ANGUS’s cameras would provide detailed photos of the wreckage
The research ship Knorr logged more than 1 4 million miles 2 2 million km during the 44 years it carried scientists around the world The U S Navy ship was retired from service in 2014 Ballard and his team had first searched a rectangular area near where the Titanic’s radio operator reported the ship’s position after hitting the iceberg Another key marker was the place where the passenger ship Carpathia found the Titanic’s lifeboats Ballard had to take into account the speed of the ocean current on the night of April 14 1912 since the current had carried the lifeboats away from the spot where the Titanic sank After the first search with the sonar on Le Suroit Ballard decided to shift the search field to the east
The few passengers who made it to the lifeboats watched as the Titanic sank beneath the waves The image is based on an illustration from a 1912 London newspaper Argo began to search in the new area on August 28 Working in shifts the crew guided Argo and studied its video images around the clock Steering Argo required great skill so the crew had to strike the right balance of speed and height off the ocean floor They wanted to get the best images possible without crashing the submersible into any obstacles The crew also battled a technical problem with the tether that connected the submersible to the Knorr For a while the glitch left the submersible stuck on the ocean floor The tether was in danger of breaking which would have left Argo there forever Ballard and others quickly worked to repair the tether before it snapped Ballard later recalled Covered in grease our knuckles bleeding we all knew this was a desperate race against time 2 But even if the crew could keep the tether from breaking there was no guarantee that the wires inside it that guided Argo would still work Luck though was on the team’s side As the Knorr slightly increased its speed Argo broke free of the ocean bottom And while the outer covering of the tether had been damaged the wires
inside were fine The hunt for the Titanic continued On August 31 the Knorr crew members on the day watch who were controlling Argo found nothing That night studying the seas Ballard wondered whether he had simply picked the wrong spot There was also a chance that an undersea earthquake decades before had stirred up mud that now covered the Titanic’s remains SECRET MISSION REVEALED At the time Robert Ballard was searching for the Titanic the U S Navy wanted the world to believe that the mission was just a test for the Argo In part that was true but it took several decades for the whole truth to become known Ballard and his crew were part of a secret mission to study the remains of two nuclear submarines the Thresher and the Scorpion The Navy feared that the subs could be releasing radiation a deadly form of energy The Navy also wanted to learn whether one of the subs had been damaged in a military attack During the 1960s when the subs sank the United States was in the middle of the Cold War It was a struggle with the Soviet Union to gain influence with other nations around the world The Cold War was still going on in 1985 so the Navy did not want the Soviet government or anyone else to know what Ballard was doing The Navy never expected me to find the Titanic he said years later and so when that happened they got really nervous because of the publicity 3 Ballard’s investigation showed that the subs nuclear reactors were intact and not leaking radiation The visual evidence he gathered also suggested that one of the subs the Scorpion had not come under enemy fire as some had suspected Ballard’s work for the Navy helped him learn how debris settles on the ocean floor when a ship sinks information that influenced how he searched for the Titanic’s debris field The nuclear submarine Scorpion was lost in May 1968 with 99 sailors onboard Shortly after midnight Ballard went to his cabin In the control room where the crew guided Argo Stu Harris watched the video monitor that showed what Argo’s cameras
