After 9 years and tens of millions of dollars, a vessel is ready to make survey expeditions to the Titanic. The Titan submersible fits 5 people: a pilot, a researcher, and three paying clients who want to come along for the journey.
“The significance of the Titanic Survey Expedition is multilevel,” OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush told Yahoo Finance. “One is we're going to see what's the current condition of the Titanic. It hasn't been visited since 2010 and that was by robots.”
The cost to participate as a client is $105,129, which is the inflation-adjusted price of a first class ticket on the Titanic in 1912: $4,350.
Preparatory deep water dives in the Bahamas are scheduled for April and the expedition scheduled to begin in June 2019.
“Titan has the capability to dive to 4000 meters, which is a little more than the average depth of the ocean,” Rush said. “So 50% of the ocean is now accessible to us with Titan and our next sub which will be Cyclopes 3, the third in the series of subs will be capable of going to 6000 meters, which would open up 98% of the ocean.”
He added that “as we go back year to year, we'll be able to see how it continues to decay and in particular, is being eaten by bacteria that eats the steel.”
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