In 1998, Ballard and his crew found the wreckage of aircraft carrier USS Yorktown 56 years after it sank. The expedition was part of a secret US military mission to recover two wrecked nuclear submarines, the Thresher and Scorpion, which had sunk to the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean. Only in recent years has Ballard been able to be completely honest about the now-declassified events that led to his discovery of the infamous wreck. Once Ballard was confident with the robotic submersible technology, he knew he’d be able to return to the site and survey the ocean floor for several hours and hours without ever having to get into a sub.īut there was the small matter of raising the funding required to support such a costly and significant expedition. I once went down 20,000 feet, which took me six hours and almost got me killed.” “In all of the expeditions leading up to it, I physically got into submarines. “The Titanic was actually the first time we introduced this kind of technology,” he explains. Once he returned from the expedition, he began developing robots that could roam the ocean floor gathering images and information. However, Ballard was forced to admit defeat when the drilling pipe broke. He made his first attempt to locate the ship in October 1977, using deep sea salvage vessel Seaprobe, a drillship with sonar equipment and cameras attached to the end of the drilling pipe. Many that I thought would have succeeded, or should have succeeded but didn’t.” “Titanic was clearly the big Mount Everest at the time,” he explains.
The Titanic will be protected by a treaty between US and UKīy now he was ready to take on the huge task of trying to locate the British passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912.Īlthough Ballard admits he was never a “Titanic fanatic,” he became fixated on finding the wreck after witnessing several unsuccessful attempts by other explorers. He spent much of the seventies exploring the ocean in Alvin, reaching 2,750 meters to explore the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, as well as joining an expedition that uncovered thermal vents in the Galapagos Rift.
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I didn’t read ‘Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,’ I watched the movie produced by Disney.”īallard went on to gain degrees in both chemistry and geology and a Master’s in geophysics from the University of Hawaii.Īfter being called for military action in 1965, he transferred to the US Navy and assigned to the Deep Submergence Group at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution where he helped to develop Alvin, a three-person submersible with a mechanical arm. “Something which I’ve never really talked about a lot is that I’m dyslexic, and that I learn differently. “That was the seminal moment when I decided I wanted to be not only an oceanographer, but a naval officer,” he says. By the time he was 12, he’d decided he wanted to be Captain Nemo from Jules Verne’s classic science fiction novel “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” when he grew up. I had a lot of time on my hands.”īallard’s fascination with the ocean began at an early age. “And we had the pandemic, I wasn’t going to sea. This was just the perfect time ” he says of the book, which was written with the help of New York Times investigative journalist Christopher Drew.
He delves into his astonishing career in the memoir released later this month, and also opens up about some of the most defining moments in his personal life, including the tragic death of his son. Emory Kristof/National Geographic Image Collection Oceanographer Robert Ballard celebrates the discovery of Titanic with photographer Emory Kristof in 1985. “When kids ask me ‘what’s your greatest discovery,’ I always tell them ‘it’s the one that I’m about to make,” he says.Īlthough Ballard accepts he’s unlikely to add another 100 expeditions to his tally, he plans to “keep knocking off a few” while he’s still able to. So I feel emancipated in many ways.”Īnd those “other dreams” are still evolving after decades of exploring the deep sea. “In many ways it’s sort of freed me up to dream other dreams.
“I’m sure my obituary is written ‘man who found the Titanic died today.’ “Moms are always right,” he tells CNN Travel.
In his upcoming memoir, “Into The Deep,” Ballard recalls walking into the premiere of the 1997 movie “Titanic” with the film’s director James Cameron, who turned to him and said: “You go first. In a career that’s spanned more than 60 years, Robert Ballard has conducted over 150 underwater expeditions and made countless significant scientific discoveries.īut the renowned oceanographer says he’s made peace with the fact that he will probably always be known as “the man who found Titanic.”Īccording to Ballard, his mother predicted he’d never be able to escape that “rusty old boat” when he called to tell her he’d located the famous shipwreck in 1985.
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