Business Visions
As William J. Broad wrote in The New York Times: “The opening of the Titanic to forensic analysis is part of a global trend in which the end of the cold war is accelerating deep sea exploration as former military personnel and technologies enter the civil sector and start to engage in commerce.”
The timeliness of this project is evident because of the following:
The necessity of brining the artifacts within the control and protection of an institution that preserves the artifacts and sites as well as creating a memorial that will be an educational resource for present and future generations of an event that shaped world history.
The inevitable decay and looting of the artifacts.
The rapid evolution of technology that will greatly expand accessibility to the artifacts.
The growing demand in tourism with an emphasis an eco-tourism and historic tourism.
The rapidly expanding global travel network.
The growing popularity of SCUBA-diving as a vacation destination activity.
The fact that there is no major battlefield memorial/museum of the Pacific War outside of Hawaii.
Some of the technical innovations in the coming century that will make this project accessible to a great many visitors from around the world will be:
Economic, high-capacity submarines that will have the ability to tour a coral reef.
The extension in depth and range of free diving equipment.
The refinement and economic viability of self-sustaining systems for facilities that will have a minimum impact on the environment.
New attractive visitor facility types, which might include large “floating resorts”, underwater hotels, smaller-scale shore based resorts that are part of the seashore/reef attraction.
The concept of the extended virtual-museum that links institutions together around the world beyond their walls to historic sites and artifacts united with a common purpose of preservation and education.