/sci/ - Science & Math

How viable is a career in Deep Sea Science?

>Once on the bottom, the lone pilot will use joysticks to command 12 thrusters to propel the sub along the ocean floor. The thrusters will allow him to move forward at 3 knots, as well as vertically at 2.5 knots—and it turns out, from sea trials testing, that the sub is quite responsive and nimble despite its mass. It can turn on a dime and maneuver quietly adjacent to free-swimming animals near the bottom, imaging them on its 3-D cameras. As with almost everything else on the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER, full-ocean-depth thrusters were not an off-the-shelf item. It took a year to design the fluid compensated electronics and to hand build each thruster at the sub’s shop in Sydney.

>Throughout the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER, more than 180 systems are monitored and controlled, including batteries, thrusters, life support, 3-D cameras, and LED lighting. One system constantly monitors the sub’s battery power and oxygen levels and reports the results to the pilot on a color touch-screen display. Another system reads the pilot’s joysticks and in turn controls the thrusters that propel and position the sub, as well as the mechanical arm.