"Thomas Wentworth" wrote
Roger ,,, what happens to the steel, iron, after so many years under
water? Doesn't it just turn back into rust or sand?


Roger Long wrote:
It's being eaten by iron loving bacteria that create the long fuzzy
things you see all over the wreck. About four tons a day is
disappearing. How did all these iron eating bugs end up in a desert
12,500 feet down where there is no other iron? One of life's
mysteries.


Lots of fascinating things... organisms from fish on down...
live in the deep ocean & nowhere else. There are many
species of little critters that live in oceanic volcanic
plumes at temperatures that seem impossible to sustain life.

Not only is the iron being eaten but the bodies have been
totally dissolved, including the bones. Chemistry works
different at such high pressures.

About the Titanic and ocean liners in general, there is
another USENET discussion group much like this one:
alt.history.ocean-liners.titanic which was very active some
years ago, discussing everything from what-ifs (the head-on
scenario, the California rescue, etc etc) to engineering
details.

There are also a LOT of interesting resources out there. Two
of the most interesting to me:

http://users.senet.com.au/~gittins/wheel.html
Right on the money, lots of other subjects, and the author
is also a cruising sailor with a lot of good stuff about
that too.

http://home.flash.net/~rfm/index/contents.html
The most unusual model of the Titanic you'll find, along
with a lot of info about the wreck as it happened and as she
is now.

Regards
Doug King

I think it's time we left this vessel - and the 1,517 who went down wit
her - alone. These ongoing intrusions (and subsequent for-profit
displays of her contents at traveling exhibitions) strike me more as
grave robing than of 'science'.

Enough already!

MW

i've always disagreed with this "grave robbing" thought process for a
number of reasons, though i know since the popular hollywood movie
about the ship it's become an equally popular point of view. funny how
popular hollywood movies do that very thing! one reason is that it's
simply history, it's a giant shipwreck, a huge disaster, and surely
deserves study to understand it. and it deserves to be studied as
cultural history also, we certainly wouldn't leave a roman galley at
the bottom of the ocean for fear of disturbing the souls on board, or a
nazi u-boat if we found one, we'd bring it to the surface, clean her
up, and stick her in a museum with bones and bearings for the world to
see. there's a lot to be gained by that, a lot to learn. and third,
and more important i would think, is that these people had families,
they were human beings. and i wouldn't want to be left there if i was
them, i'd want to be taken home and buried in the dirt, even if my
grave were unmarked with the others, so that i could rest. opinions
may vary on this topic, and since the popularity of the movie "titanic"
they certainly do, but i wouldn't want to be left in the cold dark
waters of the north atlantic. let's bring home as many as can be
found, strike up the band and finally bring her in to port, have some
parades and put the poor people to rest. if i ever go to the bottom by
all means find me! and take me home to the ground where i was born and
toss some dirt on me.

wrote:
I think it's time we left this vessel - and the 1,517 who went down wit
her - alone. These ongoing intrusions (and subsequent for-profit
displays of her contents at traveling exhibitions) strike me more as
grave robing than of 'science'.

Enough already!

MW

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 21:54:32 GMT, "Roger Long"
wrote:
Some of you, presumably without PDA’s or calendars, requested a
reminder about the Titanic show closer to air time. Here it is:

Sunday, February 26, 9:00 PM EST, History Channel. I will be on a live
call in Internet chat for the hour following.

A piece by AP just hit the wires and is already on the Boston Globe
site and they got it pretty much right this time. A photographer was
just here and spend half an hour taking more pictures of me than my
parents probably ever did. Papers should be picking this up tomorrow.

I’ve already received my first email request for an autograph.
Hopefully, more interesting requests will follow

Roger, saw the show and liked it a lot. Well done.

I was curious about the costs and the funding. Did the History
Channel fund the entire expedition?

Roger Long wrote:
[snip]

congratulations roger! it was a great show, enjoyed it very much!