Bob Ballard: Exploring the Ocean's Hidden Worlds

In this video, ocean explorer Robert Ballard takes us on a mind bending trip to hidden worlds underwater, where he and other researchers are finding unexpected life, resources, and even new mountains. He makes a case for serious exploration and mapping. Google Ocean, anyone?

Ballard begins his talk by asking the question, why are we ignoring the oceans? He asks this question because when you compare NASA's annual budget to NOAA's annual budget, NASA's budget for just one year would fund NOAA's annual budget to explore oceans for 1,600 years.

Dr. Robert Ballard is one of the greatest undersea explorers of our times, having conducted over 140 deep sea expeditions during his 54 year career of going to sea. He is not only an oceanographer with numerous important discoveries in the natural sciences including the first manned exploration of the Mid-Ocean Ridge and the discovery of the first hydrothermal vents along with their exotic life forms that have helped to explain the origin of life on our planet and where to look for life beyond the earth but also the discoverer of keys chapters of human history. Those have included the RMS TITANIC, the German Battleship BISMARCK, the aircraft carrier the USS YORKTOWN from the Battle of Midway, and President John F. Kennedy’s PT-109 as well as ancient shipwrecks dating as far back to the time of ancient Greece.