They were two entirely different operations. As Fred said, the US Navy paid for Bob’s expensive toys—which he developed for them at Woods Hole. While on active duty, it was the Navy that sent him to WHOI to pursue his post-graduate work. He holds a reserve commission in the Navy and does odd jobs for them.
The idea that the Titanic search was a cover up for his sub hunt is ridiculous.
Incidentally, I rode R/V Knorr from Woods Hole to Reykjavik on the first leg of expedition GEOSECS, after installing an IBM 1800 computer —on loan from SIO—aboard her. At that time, she still had fore & aft VSPs like her sister R/V Melville.
For the Titanic search, Knorr carried unmanned, tethered, robotic submersibles and a benthic sled with side-looking sonar. It was his later return on R/V Atlantis carrying the manned submersible Alvin that did extensive exploration. John Cameron also produced much scientifically valuable video and other data while filming “Titanicâ€.
Tourist visits and “salvage†attempts are an obscenity.
For those who can’t remember back to the fall of 1985, a quick summary:
Knorr had spent three weeks, 24 hours a day, looking at the sea floor with magnetometer, side- and bottom-looking sonar, and a video camera on Argo—a robotic vehicle flown from the control room on Knorr.
This monotonous boustrophedonic sailing came to an end 0048 hours on 1 September when Stu Harris noticed what appeared to be a circular object on his video monitor.
Bob Lange, the Argo pilot, steered in for a closer look until they could see rivets and then three furnace doors. It was a single-ended boiler from Boiler Room 1.
While MIR 1 & MIR 2 are good vessels, and worked well for Cameron, they are hardly unique. They are certainly not the first manned submersibles to visit the Titanic. It’s a shame to see them used in the grubby tourist trade.
Since 1964, Woods Hole has operated Alvin, a Human Occupied Vehicle (to use the designation of her owner, the US Navy). Alvin is usually called a Deep Submergence Vehicle, and is the world’s first of her type. She has made well over 4000 dives, in many parts of the world, at depths down to 4,500 meters.
She carries three people, including the pilot. Her dives last as long as ten hours.
She is maneuvered by six reversible thrusters, and returns to the surface by dropping steel weights.
Her equipment includes 30 cm-thick viewports, metal halide lights, video cameras, two robotic arms, and a basket for treasure.
Alvin made eleven dives to Titanic in 1986. On his last dive, Ballard placed a bronze plaque on Titanic’s stern.
