It’s been nearly 100 years since the Titanic sank to the bottom of the Atlantic. Still, the maritime disaster that took more than 1,500 lives continues to fascinate. Recently Robert Ballard, the man who discovered the ship's final resting place nearly 20 years ago, returned to the site to determine what effect fame has had on the storied ship. National Geographic followed Ballard back to the famous ship in a television special called “Titanic Revealed.” His journey is also chronicled in a new book, “Return to Titanic: A New Look at the World's Most Famous Lost Ship.” Ballard was invited on the “Today” show to talk about the book and his visit to the wreck site. Here’s an excerpt:
Titanic is many things to many people. To some it embodies the overstuffed opulence of the Edwardian era. Poetic souls find the best and worst of human nature in its final hours. Others view its fate as a cautionary tale about the folly of arrogance.
In the years since I led the team that discovered Titanic in 1985, I have watched it play new parts on the world stage. Graveyard. Time capsule. Celluloid star.
Now Titanic has assumed its most crucial role. The magnificent ship rests at a crossroads of history, and the choice of its path will affect undersea exploration for decades to come. On one side of the debate are those who argue that the best route to preserve such wrecks is to retrieve any artifacts that have aesthetic, historic, or sentimental value. They send submersibles to the ocean floor and salvage what they find there. On the other side are those who see Titanic as a wondrous museum to be appreciated without being violated.
Without apology, I can count myself among the latter.
Titanic, nearly 13,000 feet below the surface of the North Atlantic, isn’t going anywhere. Left alone, it will remain a perfect window of life — and death — in 1912. But as deep-sea technology becomes more widespread, the risk to Titanic and other precious shipwrecks grows ever greater. Damaged and picked over, Titanic is less of a ship now than two decades ago. Witnessing what has happened to the stately queen saddens those who wish to preserve her. When I consider the darkest possible future for Titanic, I think of the loss to tomorrow’s generations.
My mind then turns to Gettysburg.
My family traveled to Williamsburg, Virginia, from England in 1635. Family members soon went their separate ways. One branch of Ballards stayed in Virginia’s plantation country, but the patriarch started a new branch in New England. During the Civil War, the descendants of the Virginia Ballards and the descendants of the New England Ballards met at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. Both branches counted their own among the 51,000 who died during the bloodiest battle ever fought in the Western Hemisphere.
Perhaps Ballards, Northern and Southern, literally killed one another.
The grounds of Gettysburg National Military Park are well-preserved, thanks to an 1895 act of Congress that established it as a memorial. I have walked the land, contemplating the sacrifices made by my ancestors. Next to a clump of birch trees I came upon a sign marking the farthest advance of Pickett’s Charge, which sent 12,000 Confederate troops into the withering fire of Union lines and began the South’s long fall.
When I saw that sign, I cried. The realization that I stood where history turned, where thousands died in acts of courage, honor, and devotion, opened the gates of emotion. I was there on the very spot, as my ancestors had been in their final moments, and I was transformed by the experience.
So it was with Titanic. I had not planned to cry when I visited it either, but I did. A sense of the continuity of history overwhelmed me.
In 1986, one year after watching Titanic magically appear in the video monitors of the research vessel Knorr, I returned with a science team and explored the wreckage in Alvin, a three-man submersible. At the end of our eighth dive, we left a memorial plaque on the stern, where so many of the ship’s passengers died. As we ascended, I focused a camera on the plaque. Higher and higher we rose, and yet the image of the plaque stayed centered in the video screen. The polished metal gleamed against the darkened, rusty, silt-covered poop deck. I realized then that tears were pouring from my eyes.
To witness the Titanic in those silent depths, to feel so close to tragedy, was just like visiting Gettysburg. Each scene represented a dark moment in history. Each still speaks to us over the gulf of years. The loss of Titanic resonates with our modern world whenever we feel a loss of innocence. The death of John F. Kennedy. The shocking destruction of the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Such events shake our optimism, our confidence, and our belief that human beings control their destiny. Yet we would not want a world without Titanic or Gettysburg. Saving them, and all their rich meaning, guarantees that voices of history will speak to our grandchildren.
Ensuring Titanic’s preservation was at the heart of the expedition I undertook in the summer of 2004. I wanted to document the damage of the last 18 years, demonstrate a better way to appreciate Titanic, and beat the drum of public opinion to give the ship the same kind of protection that has shielded other national and international treasures. I wanted to make Titanic a test case for dealing with the thousands of shipwrecks still lying unexplored in international waters.
That was a tall order, but one I relished. The mission of a lifetime began with a return to Titanic.
Excerpted from “Return to Titanic: A New Look at the World's Most Famous Ship,” by Robert D. Ballard and Michael Sweeney. Copyright © 2004 by Robert D. Ballard and Michael Sweeney. Published by National Geographic. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt can be used without permission of the publisher.