Kathy Sullivan: Former NASA astronauts have reached the deepest point in the ocean

Former NASA astronaut Dr. Kathy Sullivan has become the first woman to travel to Challenger Deep, the deepest known location in the ocean, after a space trip.

Dr. Kathy made history on Sunday by diving into the Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the ocean in the Mariana Trench.

“I felt like I was on another planet and traveling on a moon-like surface,” Kathy, 68, told the BBC. It was a great experience. “

She is the eighth person and the first woman to go so deep into the sea. It is located at a depth of 11 km above sea level in the Pacific Ocean.

Dr. Sullivan studied the 11-kilometer-deep trench in the ocean for an hour and a half. They were in a small submarine specially designed to withstand extreme water pressure.

Investor and campaigner Viktor Vyskov accompanied Dr. Sullivan on the trip. Victor Vyskov is the first person to reach the deepest places in five different seas.

Dr. Sullivan said he never thought he would one day have the opportunity or that Victor would ask him to accompany him on the journey.

She says the water is frozen under the Mariana Trench, there is no light and the water pressure is very high. Even so, owning one is still beyond the reach of the average person, and researchers are still struggling to understand how it is possible.

The first voyage to the bottom of the Mariana Trench was made in 1960 by US Navy personnel Lieutenant Don Walsh and Swiss engineer Jacques Packard. Fifty-two years later, film director James Cameron embarked on this voyage in his green submarine

Dr. Sullivan’s trip was part of a campaign called Ring of Fire, which seeks to explore the deepest parts of the Pacific Ocean.

Dr. Sullivan became a NASA astronaut in 1979, and in 1984 she became the first American woman to make history by completing space travel. She spent more than 532 hours in space and joined the list of great astronauts.

She then joined the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. During his voyage at sea, he told the BBC about the oceans and space, “these are two great frontiers for humanity.”

She is now the first person to travel to both borders. The two journeys were different in terms of conditions and environment.

There is space around the International Space Station, while those who go so deep into the ocean have to work under extreme water pressure.

The emission pressure is eight tons per square inch, which is a thousand times higher than the atmospheric pressure at sea level.

Dr. Sullivan said he was trained as both a scientist and an engineer, so the special rides used in both trips made the experience of staying inside great from start to finish. One of his journeys was in a spacecraft while his recent voyage was in a water vehicle.

“They were both like a magic carpet that took me to places where no one could go.”

Prior to becoming an astronaut, Dr. Sullivan studied geology at the University of Dalhousie and has been on several marine observation missions. When he was offered to go to the bottom of the sea, he gladly accepted.

“As an oceanographer, the opportunity to go deeper into myself where extraordinarily powerful geological processes are taking place was very important to me and very different from looking at other people’s research images and data.”

Rob McCallum, co-founder of EYOS, the company that helped with the campaign, says Dr. Sullivan has a passionate and professional mindset about the oceans.

After returning from the depths of the ocean, Dr. Sullivan and Victor Veskovo spoke to the International Space Station, 400 kilometers above the ground, from the spacecraft used in the study.

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