Extreme explorer Victor Vescovo embarks on an unprecedented global mission to dive to the deepest points of all five oceans – a feat no one has ever achieved before. Vescovo, an ex-naval commander and a multi-millionaire investor, is funding the entire mission himself – at a cost of nearly $50 million. Central to this bold mission is a newly-engineered prototype mini-sub, which will have to withstand staggering pressures at full ocean depth – the equivalent of being crushed beneath the weight of the US’s largest aircraft carrier.
This is a remarkable story of human endeavour and scientific discovery in the face of huge challenges of mother nature – from nerve-shredding leaks during the first test dives in the Atlantic Ocean, to rough seas and icebergs in the Southern Ocean, diving into a tsunami trigger zone in the Indian Ocean, breaking the record for the world’s deepest ever dive in the Mariana trench in the Pacific, and evading floating pack ice to complete the final dive in the freezing waters of the Arctic. During a year-long expedition Victor and his team of adventurers and scientists draw on all their reserves of ingenuity and endurance to achieve their dream.
With over 40 new species discovered – from fish with transparent heads in the Pacific, to floating balloon-like creatures in the Indian Ocean – new swathes of the ocean bed mapped with cutting-edge sonar in unprecedented detail, and the first ever footage captured of hidden landscapes over 5 miles below the surface, this series bears remarkable witness to a landmark in exploration history – an epic journey to the final, unexplored frontier of our planet – the deep ocean.
the deep ocean Expedition team are at the very beginning of a year-long mission
they will head to each of the five oceans discover their deepest points and
explore their Uncharted depths remarkably this complex operation is
being driven and financed by one man with a hugely ambitious dream ex-naval
commander and multi-millionaire investor Victor viscovo the exciting thing about
the Expedition is the possibility of opening up the oceans and they do constitute 70 percent of the world
Victor has already completed what is known as the Explorer's Grand Slam
climbing the tallest peak on each continent and skiing to North and South Poles
now he's bidding to be the first to conquer a new frontier I was just
curious I've always wanted to do something that has never been done before and then it hit me no one has actually been to the bottom of the five
oceans the team's first ocean is one of the most volatile and unpredictable of all
[Music] the mighty Atlantic covering an extraordinary fifth of the
Earth's surface it generates some of the most powerful natural hazards on the planet
from the kind of deadly ice birds that sank the Titanic to devastating hurricanes
and the Atlantic's unexplored depths hold enormous dangers of their own on
average the Atlantic stretches down around 11 000 feet but the team are now arriving
just off the island of Puerto Rico where a mysterious trench is thought to plunge
to a staggering 27 and a half thousand feet enough to hold 22 empire state
buildings stacked on top of each other the pressure at such great depths is
immense the equivalent for a human body to be crushed beneath two and a half thousand
pickup trucks for Victor to get there will be a
massive challenge any ordinary submarine would simply implode so Victor is commissioned a
radical new design a prototype sub that today is being launched on a crucial test dive to prove
its Readiness for an assault on the trench itself this is the most advanced deep sea submersible in history at this
point the subs Builder is Patrick Lahey whose
team have spent the last three and a half years designing and constructing this engineering Wonder
this full ocean depth submersible is the equivalent of a moonshot and it has been the most difficult undertaking of my
life combat the enormous pressures at the
bottom of the ocean the sub has at its core a perfect sphere made of
lightweight titanium any imperfection and it would be crushed like a tin can
destruction of the sphere had to be incredibly precise chap was forged separately in the U.S
