The Pentarius Deep Sub Project
The Deep Sub submersible is engineered to go to 36,000′ of depth – 16,000 PSI or 1100 Atmospheres. The pressure hull is built of carbon fiber with an aluminum dome at the back end and a fused quartz dome at the front. The fused quartz is a manmade ingot that has taken over three years to machine from a 2800 lb ingot to a 550 lb hemisphere. The dome offers an unprecedented view – no one on the seafloor has ever had a view like this. The rest of the sub is “flooded” – water is around the components. Important items are filled with oil but are still exposed to the full pressure. This includes the batteries, servos, and electric motors that are used for motion on the seafloor. Syntactic foam, a special buoyancy material, makes up the rest of the volume of the sub. The sub’s instruments include high def sonar, video, and chemical sensors. Together, they will allow scientists to paint a full picture of the deep environment based on an unprecedented amount of raw data.
→ More about the Pentarius Sub
→ Chris Welsh Discusses the Five Dives
Surveying Chemical & Munitions Dump Sites
The Ocean has been our unfortunate dumping ground for centuries. Over the last 70 years, 150 million tons of Chemicals & Munitions were dumped; the United States has 1,000 dumping sites on each of its shores. Chemical & Munitions dump sites take all forms – 55 gallon drums, mass explosives, bombs, warheads, shells and related equipment. Phosgene Shells, jellied Mustard Gas & High Explosives. We need to be cleaning this up and to do that, monies need to be allocated. By visiting these areas with a manned submersible and being able to testify with first hand knowledge and with the visibility of the sub behind the project we can bring a new light to these issues. Our goal is to visit enough of these sites to document their condition and the urgency of cleaning them up before the toxic chemicals enter the Ocean. The video documentation of these sites will be presented to Congress and given to advocacy groups to help further the mission.
Sir. Richard Branson atop the Pentarius Sub