Aliens of the Deep Page #2

How you gonna get that fixed up?

Call A-frames"R"Us? You know,

have their little service ship come by?

Thousand miles from shore?

We don't have to move on it immediately,

but it's at least something

we need to start processing,

Well, I mean,

if they can't fix this,

and we don't have an alternate way

of launching the sub, it's over,

the expedition's over,

If you are going to explore,

you have to accept the fact

that on the one hand there's risk.

You have to stay up all night long

thinking about every single factor

that's involved in what you're doing,

and making sure that

you've thought of everything.

'Cause if you can eliminate

all the things you can think of,

you've eliminated nine-tenths

of what can go wrong,

That way, when that last one-tenth

pops up, and you're in the middle of it,

you don't have to worry about all the

other stuff 'cause you've dealt with that,

Look, to be completely serious, your idea

about cutting that bulwark away at the side

is the best idea I've heard

for an alternate plan yet,

Just cut the side right out of the ship,

I say we go clear that

with the captain right now,

OK, Well, plan B,

All right,

we can talk it through tonight,

but I don't think

we should try for an all-up drill tonight,

I mean, people have been up

since 4:
30 in the morning,

It became apparent that

the only way to get the subs off the "Ares"

was to use the main crane and by sliding

the submersibles off the side of the vessel.

With a crane that is 30, 40, 50 feet above

the actual pick point of the submersible,

once an object starts to swing,

you can't stop it.

It's called the wrecking-ball effect.

Once it gets away from you,

you can't get it back.

I'm guessing we've got six to eight feet of

travel here, I'm thinking we should use...

It ultimately resulted

in Jim writing a 40-page manual

on what he thought the best way

to launch the vessel was.

This eye feeds into that...

So we spent a long time

devising four separate pick points,

as well as eight different points

of connection to the submersible

to stop it from swaying.

We would practice all night long.

At dawn the following day, we were ready

to attempt it for the first time.

We spent the past 24 hours rebuilding

the entire launch and recovery system,

which required us to cut this wall out, rerig

every capstan, rerig every block and tackle,

We've got about

Every single point

has to be checked by me, by hand,

Any single point fails, anything,

from the blue winch

to the cable itself, snaps, breaks,

not only do we lose the sub, but we risk the

chance of losing somebody on the deck,

I'm looking at every pulley

under tension, and it's looking at me,

Keldysh, be advised,

we are go for launch ops,

Deck crew, be advised we have 15

minutes before we start launch operation,

- Paul?

- Yeah, roger that, DP control,

MIR One's going into

the water right now,

Let's see the crane, guys,

- Oh, yes,

- Stow that, get on the line,

Bye-bye,

Tim, Straps off,

Keep going, keep going, keep

going, keep going, keep going, keep going,

DP control to "Keldysh."

MIRs are beginning their descent. Over.

Say goodbye to the surface world,

I love this part,

Everything is a go,

We're ready to vent,

SO, SO, Rover One,

Go ahead, Rover One.

We are about to start

our tandem descent,

OK, here we go,

And three, two, one...

- Venting. Go, go, go.

- OK, we're venting now,

Venting now,

All right, Rock and roll, Here we go,

The descent to Lost City

takes about 30 minutes,

which is plenty of time

to think about what you're about to do.

My name is Loretta Hidalgo,

and I'm an explorer.

Copy that, Rover One, This is Rover Two,

hearing you loud and clear,

My goal is to one day

explore the reaches of space.

- That is the bomb, Yeah!

- We're at 840 meters,

Surface, this is Rover Two, We are

at 840 meters, We are on the bottom,

God, these structures are gorgeous,

OK, there's the rendezvous point,

and they are right there,

MIR Two, MIR Two,

this is Rover Two. Do you copy? Over.

MIR Two, MIR Two,

this is Rover Two, Do you copy?

That's affirmative, Rover Two.

We have a very good visual on you.

We were doing something

that no humans had ever done.

This was the first time that four deep

submersibles had ever dived together.

The water pressure that you get

down at 3,000 feet is mind-boggling.

If you've ever carried a bucket of water,

you know that's about a foot of water.

Now imagine being under

And all that weight

of all those buckets lined up on your head

are all pressing down on you

and on the submarine.

Definitely not something

that humans were evolved to do.

OK, Loretta, can you relay to Mike

that we are in position for 'bot ops? Over,

Copy,

MIR Two, MIR Two,

are you go for 'bot deploy?

Uh, roger that,

We'll get set for 'bot ops, Over,

- OK, There it is,

- Yeah, there he is,

There's Jake,

Can you see his tether spinning out?

It's like a spider spinning its web,

I'm just gonna pull a little tether

out here, to the left, into the current,

and then I'll yaw back to the right,

We were really

pushing the boundary

of being out in

an extreme environment.

I had this incredible experience of feeling

like I'd been transported into the future.

Hi, 'bot!

That I was on a space mission, and

we were watching another spacecraft

coming up to work with us.

Hi, Mike,

Get me out of here,

- Affirmative,

- Affirmative,

Push in a tiny bit in here,

and I get just right in as close as I can go,

Oh, wow,

Are you seeing the structure?

Yeah, Beautiful,

OK, Mike, If you come right

about 30 degrees, and come forward,

you'll come to a big fan right on

the corner of that rock, Over,

Copy that.

Oh, this is gorgeous,

I feel like I'm out there,

- Are you liking this?

- I'm loving this,

OK, I'm gonna have to come up a little bit,

Well, we're doing pretty good here,

I've encountered a little

more current than I expected right here,

Oh, my gosh!

Hello, Mr, Big,

He's like, "Don't even mess with me,"

Oh! Oh, my God,

Wow,

Wow,

Kevin Hand is one of our astrobiologists.

And he's a brilliant guy.

Really.

That's one of the interesting things

I think about the Europan ocean,

is that you can ask

two questions about life on Europa,

Could life have originated on Europa?

Astrobiology is

the study of life on other worlds.

But since Kevin doesn't have any real

extraterrestrial specimens to analyze yet,

he's out here doing

the next best thing:

Looking at life in the extreme conditions

of the deep ocean.

He's a theory guy

and he's never been to sea before,

let alone inside a submersible

headed to the bottom of the ocean.

Here we go,

Into the unknown,

Rover Two, MIR Two copies you

loud and clear now. Loud and clear now.

Yeah, it looks like

it goes down for a long ways,

MIR Two is right above us,

Very few people get to see

MIR Two from this angle,

That is fantastic,

The scale of these things

is so much larger than I had imagined,

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