Utah State Journalism Professor Visits Titanic Site, Completes Book with Robert Ballard
From the Hard News Cafe,
By Loni Stapley
We all know how the story turned out. It was said to be unsinkable but turned out not to be when it struck an iceberg, broke in two, and sank to the bottom of the ocean. Books have been written about it. Television specials and blockbuster films have told its story. And yet 92 years later, people are still intrigued by the tale of the Titanic.
"The thing about Titanic that makes it so memorable is the whole notion of the grandeur of the Edwardian era – the biggest, fanciest ship ever built, and built with the boast that it was 'practically unsinkable,'" says Mike Sweeney, an associate professor in the journalism department at Utah State University.
Sweeney has a special reason to be interested in the Titanic, which sank to its watery grave on
Ballard's discovery of the wreck site brought the Titanic back to life. People were finally able to see pictures of the ship on the ocean floor and tie the Titanic's story to something concrete.
"It's no longer just a mythical, invisible ship. It's a real ship," Sweeney says.
Since then, Titanic mania has swept the world, heightened by the release of a major motion picture directed by James Cameron in 1997. The wreck site has been visited countless times, with people salvaging the area for souvenirs or just wanting to see the haunting image of the ship lying dormant at the bottom of the ocean. A couple from
Sweeney has his own reasoning for why the Titanic remains such a fascinating subject. He says there was a hubris, or "overinflated and unjustified pride," surrounding the Titanic that led people to have total faith in technology.
"It was a stunning story then about how mankind is puny compared to nature even in his greatest works, and it remains that way. Every time we see a similar disaster, we feel like what they felt like when the Titanic went down," Sweeney says.
Ballard's return to the wreck site this summer was for more significant reasons. He wanted to take pictures of Titanic's final resting place in high-definition in order to create a mosaic -- in other words, a seamless picture -- of the entire wreck.
"The purpose of that is to compare how this picture of Titanic in 2004 looks with how it looked in '85 and '86," Sweeney says. "If you compare these two you kind of get a baseline for deterioration so you can decide how quickly it's falling apart and what you want to do about it."
No humans actually went down to the wreck site on what Ballard referred to as a "look-but-don't-touch mission." Instead, he used Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs), which are essentially robots operated at the end of 2 1/2-mile long cables. The ROVs were sent directions through fiber-optic cables telling them which way to move, and the images of what they saw were projected onto giant television screens back on deck.
Ballard didn't go down in a submersible himself on this expedition because he believes Titanic is being damaged more by human activity than by natural causes. He took pictures of impact marks on the ship to hopefully provide evidence that humans should no longer be allowed down at the wreck site.
"He wanted to demonstrate that you don't need to send people down to the bottom of the ocean to explore the bottom of the ocean," Sweeney says.
Ballard also made the expedition to look for certain kinds of artifacts.
"He's not interested in bringing any of [the artifacts] back. His whole point is to
Ballard was mainly looking for shoes and a porcelain doll's head that he saw back in 1986 (which he never found and speculates was salvaged), artifacts that show the human dimension of the wreck. The fact that so many bodies went to the bottom of the ocean is one of the things that makes people so interested in the Titanic disaster.
"A lot of other ships had sunk with a greater loss of life, but there's a combination of factors . . . that make Titanic remain interesting. It sank slowly -- it took 2 1/2 hours after it hit the iceberg to go to the bottom. There was time for some human drama to get played out," Sweeney says. "In the 2 1/2 hours you had people discovering that they were going to die and then reacting, and you had people making decisions about how they [wanted] to die."
Sweeney explains that the passengers on board Titanic that fateful night were probably all dressed warmly in anticipation of being in the frigid water. Approximately 1,200 people went to the bottom of the ocean along with the ship, never to be found. Exposed to bio-organisms, their flesh and bones were the first to decay, then their clothing. Leather -- what shoes are made of -- is the last thing to deteriorate. About a week into the expedition, Ballard came across a portion of the debris field that hadn't been salvaged and found lots of pairs of shoes. Most were about 12 inches apart, heels in, toes out, lying flat on the ocean floor – after the body decomposed entirely, the shoes were left in that orientation, a tell-tale sign that a body once lay on that spot as well.
Sweeney says two sets of shoes in particular showed the human dimension of the tragedy. A pair of woman's shoes was found next to a pair belonging to an adolescent girl. Next to the shoes was a long-toothed comb, a short-toothed comb and a hand mirror.
"Wow. It was really pretty powerful. You kind of wonder whether the woman had long hair. We'll never know, but it's kind of fun to imagine," Sweeney says.
Overall, Sweeney says Ballard was satisfied with his return visit to Titanic. He tied a broom to the mast once they reached shore again, signifying a clean sweep or that "I have accomplished everything I set out to do." The only thing Ballard has left to do now is convince people that Titanic should be an international park and off-limits to ordinary visitors. He hopes to stop human contact with the wreck site so Titanic won't deteriorate any faster than it is.
Working with Ballard and being on deck as images of Titanic were brought up from the depths of the ocean was an experience Sweeney will never forget. He has become quit the Titanic buff -- he says now when he sees the movie, he picks out which parts are factual and which aren't. Although it was hard work getting the book ready to be released in such a short time, Sweeney says it was well worth it.
"[It was] a lot of fun. It's like being paid to go on vacation, because who wouldn't want to go see Titanic?"
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