If you compare NASA's annual budget to explore the heavens, that one year budget would fund NOAA's budget to explore the oceans for 1,600 years.

The deep sea is the largest museum on earth, it contains more history than all the museums on land combined, and yet we're only now penetrating it.

I mean, technology is amoral. It has no morality.

My family came in 1635 from England and settled in Williamsburg. Shortly after, they split up; half went to New England and half stayed in Virginia. I'm a Virginian Ballard.

It is a quiet and peaceful place - and a fitting place for the remains of this greatest of sea tragedies to rest.

What drives me is exploration with a purpose, more the classic Royal Geographical Society genre.

I think the most important thing people can do to save our planet and the human race is to empower women!