New Horizons' Alan Stern Compares Titanic Trip With Space Travel

Planetary scientist Alan Stern said he wasnt prepared for the intersections his oceanic expedition to the Titanic made with his career, which includes his time leading NASA s New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt.

Stern, who spoke to HuffPost last week, revealed the parallels he discovered between the oceanic journey he made through OceanGate Expeditions a company that offers trips to the Titanics resting place in the Atlantic Ocean and exploration of space.

The scientist joined OceanGate Expeditions, which is offering $250,000 expeditions for people to see the famed ship roughly 12,500 feet below the ocean surface, on its Titan submersible as a mission specialist and scientific expert (such experts dont pay fares to join the expeditions).

A number of Sterns contributions to the mission in addition to offering his planetary knowledge included collecting water column samples, aiding with ocean bottom sampling and providing assistance with communication to a team on the surface during the descent.

It has some parallels both to current and to far-future space exploration, like the exploration of ocean worlds in the outer solar system, Stern told HuffPost. And it didnt all gel for me until I really made the journey and was on our way steaming back north to Canada to come back to dock.

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