Wearable submarine to hunt for 2000-year-old computer

newscientist.com ^ | 04 June 2014 by | Mark Harris

[BenLurkin]

Like an underwater Iron Man, a diver will fly around the wreck of an ancient Greek ship later this year, looking to shed light on the Antikythera mechanism

THE world's most advanced robotic diving suit is getting ready to help search for one of the world's oldest computers.

Called Exosuit, the suit has a rigid metal humanoid form with Iron Man-like thrusters that enable divers to operate safely down to depths of 300 metres (see photo).

Though designed for diving in the bowels of New York City's water treatment plants, earlier this month it underwent its first trials in seawater at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts. The tests are readying the suit for a daring attempt to excavate an ancient Roman shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera in the Aegean Sea. A century ago, divers pulled the world's oldest computer – the Antikythera mechanismMovie Camera – from the wreck. They are hoping that they will find a second device when they go down in September.

Marine archaeologists normally wear scuba gear to explore underwater sites in person, but the time that divers can spend at depth is limited by the dangers of decompression sickness, or the bends. For deep wrecks, researchers rely on remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) carrying cameras and sonar to scan an area, or large and expensive craft like the Alvin submarine that explored the wreck of the Titanic in 1986.

[colorado tanker]

That is a really cool suit. That ship sounds like it was crammed full of rich peoples’ stuff. Could be very interesting.