/sci/ - Science & Math

>>4061782

Here's one of the most advanced deep sea rovers, Nereus. It was a two part probe with a detacthable sub portion that could zoom around freely, without a cable, then come back and dock to the rover to recharge. It had true full ocean depth capability and was in fact only the second or third probe to be sent to the challenger deep and return samples, but it's still pretty crude compared to what we could accomplish.

We'll need fully autonomous ROVs to explore Europa, for instance. And btw, Robotnaut may look retarded but being able to map a robot's arms/hands to the motions of human arms/hands gives them the kind of dexterity that made for the best argument in favor of sending humans over robots. Won't work that well in space due to the communication delay, but for a deep sea robot there wouldn't be any lag. It would be exactly like being down there in person.

>>2269548

You're not kidding. At that depth the result of porthole failure would've been instantaneous liquefaction. I doubt you'd have time to feel it.

It's why since then we've only sent robots. Like this one, the Nereus, which returned our first samples of the thick ooze at the bottom of the trench.

Here's a video it took at the bottom: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EMyymnC93E

>>2232520

>>Why not just send robots into the deep?

Because they can't go anywhere; they are tethered to the ship above by a data cable (wireless signals don't get far in water)

Here's the Nereus deep sea rover, cool mainly because it has limited ability to roam autonomously, detaching from the treaded base and operating like a sub on battery power for limited stretches. Very useful and gave us our first samples of the organic ooze at the bottom of the Challenger Deep:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EMyymnC93E

....But it can only be used in places that we know, beforehand, will contain something worth investigating. This approach does not permit free form exploration or the coincidental discoveries made by human beings throughout history, the discoveries which define scientific discovery.

Deep sea rovers....

As an example of what to expect down there, here's a video of the Nereus deep sea robot sampling a strange organic ooze at the bottom of the Challenger Deep:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EMyymnC93E

The Nereus is to deep sea exploration what the Pathfinder, Oddysey and other rovers are to Mars exploration. It can go where almost no submarines are capable. The only manned sub ever to visit the Challenger Deep was the Trieste, and they very nearly didn't survive.