The Jordan Harbinger Show
1089: Victor Vescovo | Into the Abyss: Reaching Earth's Deepest Places
10 Dec 2024
Explorer Victor Vescovo shares how he engineered a sub to reach 35,000 feet below the sea and what he's discovered in Earth's deepest trenches. What We Discuss with Victor Vescovo: Victor Vescovo led the Five Deeps expedition, becoming the first person to reach the deepest points of all five oceans. Prior to his expedition, several of these locations weren't even precisely mapped, requiring extensive sonar surveys to locate the actual deepest points. The average place on Earth is 4,000 meters underwater, and 71% of Earth is ocean — of which 75% remains completely unexplored. This means about half of our planet is still unexplored, and in many respects, we know more about the surface of Mars than our own ocean depths. The high pressures present at the deepest ocean points required innovative engineering solutions to navigate, including a perfectly spherical titanium pressure vessel that actually became stronger with repeated dives due to the intense pressure "reforging" the metal. Beneath 6,000 meters, the ocean is a sunless realm of absolute darkness. But even here, life thrives beyond the reach of light under pressure that would crush the average surface dweller, hinting at the flora and fauna we might expect to find on even the most extreme alien worlds. Anyone can become an explorer and push technological boundaries by breaking down seemingly impossible challenges into smaller, solvable problems. As Victor demonstrates, by carefully analyzing requirements, building the right team, and maintaining disciplined program management, even the most ambitious projects can be achieved through methodical execution and persistent dedication. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1089 And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally! This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: jordanharbinger.com/deals Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course! Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom! Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Full Episode
Coming up next on The Jordan Harbinger Show. Technology has cured diseases, fed us, kept us warm, have done all these things for 8 billion people on the planet. And we've got to keep that technological machine moving forward.
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get a taste of everything we do here on the show, just visit jordanharbinger.com slash start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Today, we're talking with an amazing explorer who's been to the peak of each of the Earth's highest mountains, as well as to the deepest parts of every ocean. We're talking with Victor Vescovo. Usually, I don't focus on these sorts of achievements.
I don't know. It's just not really my thing. However, not only did Victor descend to these previously unknown depths, but he also helped fund, design, test, and construct the vehicle that actually did it I was not aware that we know more about the surface of Mars than about the deepest parts of the ocean here on Earth. I really had no clue about any of that. This story is really something else.
Victor's kind of like a Tony Stark meets Jacques Cousteau kind of guy. He's also a really good storyteller and an amazing person all around. I am very glad that we got to do this one. So if you're interested in science, the oceans, sea life, climate, technology, this is a great episode for you. All right, here we go with Victor Vescovo.
I'd love to hear a little bit about your background because that's what really kind of got me. Susan Casey, who introduced us, was like, oh, he was in the military and then he did this thing and then he started a hedge fund and then he started this other thing and they went to all the mountains, they went to the bottom of the ocean.
I was like, is this one person or did I, I had to rewind the book.
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