Since the beginning of life on Earth, the majority of the planet’s creatures have resided in the ocean’s depths. From that first human contact with the edge of the sea, early man understood that there was food to be had in the mysterious ocean—and death awaited those who did not respect both the water and the creatures that called it home.
As humankind advanced over the ages, its populations flourished along the coasts, using the water for food, transportation, trade, and exploration. And whether it was Norse legend or tales from Boston whaling ships—every culture that lived with the sea told stories of terrifying creatures.
Like biblical stories that explained “that which cannot be seen,” old seagoing tales warned of the hidden dangers that lurked deep below the water awaiting careless sailors. Those early sailors and explorers brave enough to set out into waters unknown returned with stories dismissed by modern, educated men. But why? Is it because believing such tales would keep us all on land forever?
Old engravings from the whaling era show giant squids pulling entire tall-masted ships under the waves. Impossible? Not to those who have seen giant squids destroy a sperm whale, or who have seen schools of Humboldt squids shred their prey in a feeding frenzy.
And while many of the world’s giant fish have disappeared over the eons, who knows, really, what lives in the deepest parts of the ocean? The Marianas Trench is deeper than the Himalayas are tall, with creatures living in the cold darkness more terrifying looking than any monster from Hollywood. As man turns his exploration from the stars to the oceans, he finds new life-forms here on his own planet that seemingly defy the laws of science—creatures that can live without sunlight or oxygen, and entire ecosystems that exist in ways we cannot yet begin to understand.
Throughout modern history, man has almost always engaged with a new species by conquering it in some way. He has turned it into a new food source, used its hide or fur for clothing, researched its potential uses for medicinal purposes, or hunted it for sport. The arrogance of armed man has always pushed him to pursue exploration and exploitation of the natural world with impunity. No creature has ever successfully repelled the invasion of the human race for very long.
Until now.
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When President Jeff Roberts was elected president in 2020, his inaugural address included references to exploring “inner space” and the oceans as a priority that could no longer be ignored. While his predecessor had promised a Mars mission that excited NASA, President Roberts immediately began making sweeping changes in the funding priorities of NASA, NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), and the United States Navy. The fact that President Roberts was a retired naval officer wasn’t lost on any of the protesting department heads at NASA.
Not since Thomas Jefferson had the United States seen such a Renaissance man in the Oval Office. A US Navy hero, Roberts was also a brilliant physicist, scientist, and statesman. Within two months of taking office, Roberts had replaced the head of NASA with former US Navy pilot-turned-astronaut Rear Admiral Thomas Antus and unveiled his bold plan to see a deep-sea research station built to rival the International Space Station. Citing the need to address similar hurdles in both space and deep-sea exploration, Roberts announced that the station would be a joint effort between NASA, NOAA, and the navy. What it meant for the Mars mission was a huge budget cut that would essentially shelve the program for decades, but for those scientists who had been the pioneers of deep-sea exploration, it meant funding the likes of which they never could have dreamed.
With a budget of six billion dollars (the cost of two Virginia-class submarines), the deep-sea research station quickly became a reality. By comparison, the Alvin, one of the most famous deep-sea exploration vehicles ever built, was constructed and later refurbished for under a million dollars. With six billion dollars, the new Office of Deep Sea Research could take deep-sea exploration to the next level—tantamount to NASA first going to the moon.
Putting astronauts, astrophysicists, and rocket scientists alongside submariners, navy research scientists, and divers caused as many immediate problems as it did offer up new ideas. While forming ODSR, President Roberts noted the similarities between space travel and deep-sea exploration and claimed to have assembled “the brightest minds in American science to achieve the vision of real deep-sea research—one that could lead to great discovery and perhaps undersea colonies.” But when it came to the hazards of each environment—space versus the deep ocean—there were quite opposite problems to overcome.
Space was a cold vacuum that threatened to suck a ship’s life-sustaining atmosphere and even its occupants out into the endless black void. In contrast, the deep ocean, also completely dark and cold, exerted enormous pressures on the undersea ships, and the thousands of pounds per square inch threatened to crush vehicles like thin aluminum cans. In either case, everyone died. But in trying to engineer vehicles for these two modes of travel, there were two worlds of science that didn’t speak the same language.
To the NASA bureaucrats, the new Office of Deep Sea Research was an insult that destroyed their Mars project and sucked out their budget like the vacuum of space. They referred to the Office of Deep Sea Research acronym ODSR as “ODS-Are” and would say things like, “Odds are they’ll spend six billion dollars to drown a bunch of guinea pigs.” Of course, the early days of the space race weren’t much different, as the navy bunch would always remind the complainers.
To his credit, the new head of NASA, Admiral Antus, used his background to smooth feathers in both camps. Over the course of his illustrious career, the retired rear admiral had been a navy combat pilot, an astronaut who flew a space shuttle mission, and a scientist who lived aboard the International Space Station for six months. He ultimately returned to the US Navy to finish his career in the Pentagon heading the fleet research department. He had the respect of both groups of scientists, and both camps felt they had a sympathetic ear with him. In his role as director of ODSR, Admiral Antus played referee with only one goal in mind—completing his mission of establishing the world’s first deep-sea research station.
At fifty-eight, Admiral Antus was still a striking figure with his thick white flattop crew cut and slim build. He wasn’t particularly large in stature, but he had a presence that was felt when he entered the room. He managed the teams well, separating their missions into projects that made sense for each of their areas of expertise. Inside of eighteen months, ODSR staff had designed new metal alloys, hull designs, oxygen production and atmospheric scrubbing systems, biofuel systems that could run on algae, synthetic diamond double-paned glass viewing portals, and revolutionary new concepts in undersea living. After approval of the final plans, construction was finished thirty months later—on time and on budget, thanks to Admiral Antus’s oversight. When the Challenger rolled out of the specially built dry-dock in Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, in Honolulu, Hawaii, its enormity shocked the world.
The three-hundred-foot, nearly spherical sea lab was almost as wide as a United States Navy Seawolf-class submarine, but that sub was only forty feet at the beam—not three hundred feet tall. If placed next to the Statue of Liberty, the Challenger would only be five feet shorter with its legs retracted. The five short, weighted, telescopic legs on the bottom of the ship would be deployed to stabilize the vessel when it neared the seabed. These same weighted legs would be jettisoned when it was time for the Challenger to surface.
The name of the ship, Challenger, made both camps happy. It paid tribute to the astronauts of the space shuttle Challenger that exploded January 28, 1986, while also acknowledging the proud history of deep-sea research. The Challenger Deep is the name given to the deepest surveyed point in the ocean, located at the southern end of the Marianas Trench. At a depth of nearly thirty-six thousand feet, Mount Everest could be placed on its bottom and still have almost seven thousand feet of water over its summit.
While the maiden voyage of the Challenger was not, in fact, to the Challenger Deep, it was tasked with a one-year trip to the hadal zone at a depth of twenty thousand feet—roughly four miles down. For the NASA teams, a year in such an isolated, dangerous environment would serve as an experiment for a Mars trip they hoped to someday resurrect. For the navy scientists, this was the journey they had always dreamed of. The deepest oceanic explorations by humans never lasted more than a few hours—to place humans on the deep seafloor for a year meant observations and experiments that would change history.
And, in fact, it would.