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Old news clip the day after the Titanic was first discovered in 1985. They still hadn't ascertained the condition of the wreck.

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In the 1980s Dr. Robert Ballard was determined to discover the Titanic. On several occasions he tried to rally an expedition to find the most famous shipwreck of all time. To him undersea exploration was easy but the Titanic, deep on the Atlantic sea bed would push boundaries further than any deep sea diver had previously gone.

Equipment had to be specially designed to withstand the water pressures of the depths they needed to explore. The Titanic would lay at a depth over 13,000 feet.

In 1973, the submersible Alvin went through design changes. Inparticular, her steel hull was replaced with titanium alloy which could better withstand the depths involved.

Eventually funding was granted from Woods Hole and equipment was borrowed from various sources that included a side scan sonar, a deep-towed magnetometer, an LIBEC imaging system and of course underwater cameras.

The Titanic's distress signal placed the Titanic at 41°46'N, 50° 14' west. Part of the British Enquiry was to ascertain if this was exact. It concluded that the position given was slightly inaccurate as the Carpathia, who raced to the Titanic's rescue, reached the lifeboats before they should have done if the position was accurate.

Ballard's search strategy was simply: they would scan the ocean floor within a best search triangle until they found the ship.

Earlier in 1981 Jack Grimm led a team to find the ship, positive that they were searching the exact spot the ship foundered - they had not. Revised calculations suggested that the Titanic was eight miles further north than previously thought. They allowed for the speed of the lifeboats and the probable drift Titanic would have had on her way both after she had stopped and then down to the bottom of the ocean.

After reworking these calculations, a second 1981 expedition failed again. The Deep-tow passed within a mile and a half of the wreck but the sonar scanners were out of range. After three weeks of searching Grimm was convinced he had found one of Titanic's propellers. He began to tell the world that Titanic had been found.

Two years later Grimm wanted to search the area again but the expedition failed. Ballard who had followed the expeditions with great interest realised that Grimm had not spent enough time looking for the ship. It was now Ballard's turn.

Ballard had a realisation which led him to develop the Argo/Jason concept. When assembled they were a remote controlled deep towed deep sea video vessel combined with a swimming robot on a cable leash. The name of the project was derived form Greek mythology (Jason and the Argonauts).

Argo would be an unmanned submarine loaded with video cameras towed above the ocean bottom at the end of fibre-optical wires. The built in sonar could scan accurately the ocean floor for small debris.

In 1984 the US Navy agreed to fund a three week test for the following summer and Argo was built.

Aboard the Knorr, Ballard sailed to where he believed the Titanic sank. He hoped that his French colleagues had not beaten him to the wreck. However, by the end three weeks he had not found the ship and on August 6 1985 headed home.

Lateral thinking

When a ship it sinks it leaves a path of debris (objects from within the ship or objects breaking off). Depending how deep the vessel sinks this debris can be scattered over a large distance. On a shorter descent, the debris falls more or less vertically. However, as the Titanic sank 21/2 miles a huge debris field was expected.

A new search strategy was formed. This time they would first look for the debris field rather than the Titanic herself.

The logbook of the Californian enabled Ballard and his crew to estimate the speed and direction of drift of the lifeboats. The Californian was between five to ten miles away from the Titanic at the time of the disaster and reported in its log that they had experienced drift. Also Ballard knew that the Titanic had to be north of where the lifeboats were found.

On August 24 1985 Ballard returned to the vacinity of the Titanic. He had 12 days to locate the wreck. Argo was launched the next day but encountered technical problems. After another six days, the crew was fed up with the monotiny of observing sand, mud and the bottomless ocean.

But on the 1st September 1985 a strange appeared on the Video monitors. A BOILER!!!

The RMS Titanic had to be near.

New hopes were realised. Argo was launched to scan the search area for the Titanic. Eventually at an altitude of 160 feet above the bed, Argo passed over the main hull of the ship. They could see that the funnel had gone (the one which Lightoller recalled saved his life when it tore out of its fixtures moments before the ship went down).

Their first look at the Titanic lasted six minutes: she was upright and a large section of her hull was in tact. She laid 13,000 feet below the surface.

Following much the cheering and clapping, reverential silence overcame the crew of the Knorr. It was almost 2 a.m. and very close to the time when the Titanic actually sank. Argo was used to photograph the wreck during the many passages made over her.

Soon news that the Titanic had been found had reached the corners of the world. Once more the RMS Titanic was in the minds of millions of people.

EXPLORATION OF THE TITANIC
Day 1
On July 13th 1986 another Ballard expedition was underway to explore the Titanic in more detail.

Jason Junior (JJ) would be used to video the Titanic. JJ would be operated on a long cable attached to Alvin which contained three crew who would steer JJ.
Day 2
After a short lived dive due to battery failure, a second dive proved highly successful.

Apparently from nowhere, the razor sharp bow of the Titanic came into view. Both anchors were still in place. It appeared that the bow was buried more than 60 foot in the mud.

Ballard described the decaying metal as "frozen rivers of rust covering the ships' side and spread out over the ocean floor."

As Alvin moved across the forward deck, the giant bollards and capstans were clearly visible although the wires and ropes once connected to them were gone. The wooden floor had been eaten away.

The expedition continued to the severed section of the intact bow section. A sudden strong current stopped the trip and Alvin was forced to head to the surface.
Day 3
JJ traversed the Grand Staircase, which at one time had been covered by a glass dome. Whatever JJ saw, Alvin's crew saw too. A Chandelier had survived the journey to the bottom of the sea. JJ's maiden voyage was a total success.
Day 4
The team visited Captain Smith's cabin to find its outer walls collapsed to a heap on the deck. Next, JJ explored the Gym where pieces of equipment could be seen in amongst the rubble. Metal frames from the electric camel were also intact.
Day 5

The debris field spans nearly 2000 feet between the two sections of the Titanic. The debris includes lumps of coal, wrought-iron deck benches, baths, crockery and other bric-a-brac.

Another boiler was found with an iron cup sitting peacefully on top of it. A safe was found on the ocean floor proudly showing off its brass handle. Ballard tried to open the safe but the door would not open to reveal its contents.

Day 6
It was clear from the debris field that the torn-off stern section had been badly damaged during its journey to the bottom and now lay 1,970 feet from the bow section.

Ballard's next plan lead Alvin along the bottom of the ocean bed directly behind the stern section and sent JJ to examine the hull. He found that the stern section was also buried deep beneath the mud, probably to a depth of 45 feet. Both middle and starboard side propellers were under the mud.

Before leaving the wreck, Ballard placed a memorial plaque on the stern in memory of those who lost their lives on that fateful night.

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RMS Titanic is found by Dr Robert Ballad

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In the 1980s Dr. Robert Ballard was determined to discover the Titanic. On several occasions he tried to rally an expedition to find the most famous shipwreck of all time. To him undersea exploration was easy but the Titanic, deep on the Atlantic sea bed would push boundaries further than any deep sea diver had previously gone.

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Titanic’s Watery Grave Located, 30 Years Ago article

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Titanic’s Watery Grave Located, 30 Years Ago article

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10 causes of the Titanic tragedy article

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10 causes of the Titanic tragedy article

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The "unsinkable" Titanic was sunk by an iceberg, but there are other reasons why the tragedy that occurred 100 years ago this month was as tragic as it was. Even a century later, the case of the Titanic illustrates how technological failures often result from a succession of omissions, missteps and bad luck rather than one big mess-up.

"No one thing sent the Titanic to the bottom of the North Atlantic," Richard Corfield writes in a Physics World retrospective on the disaster that caused 1,514 deaths on April 14-15, 1912. "Rather, the ship was ensnared by a perfect storm of circumstances that conspired her to her doom. Such a chain is familiar to those who study disasters - it is called an 'event cascade.'"

The iceberg that the Titanic struck on its way from Southampton to New York is No. 1 on a top-10 list of circumstances. Here are nine other suggested circumstances from Corfield's article and other sources:

Climate caused more icebergs: Weather conditions in the North Atlantic were particularly conducive for corralling icebergs at the intersection of the Labrador Current and the Gulf Stream, due to warmer-than-usual waters in the Gulf Stream, Richard Norris of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography told Physics World. "Oceanographically, the upshot of that was that icebergs, sea ice and growlers were concentrated in the very position where the collision happened," Norris said.

Tides sent icebergs southward: Last month, astronomers at Texas State University at San Marcos noted that the sun, the moon and Earth were aligned in such a way that could have led to unusually high tides in January 1912. They speculated that the tides could have dislodged iceberg s that were stuck in the Labrador Sea, sending more of them toward the waters traversed by the Titanic a couple of months later.

The ship was going too fast: Many Titanicologists have said that the ship's captain, Edward J. Smith, was aiming to better the crossing time of the Olympic, the Titanic's older sibling in the White Star fleet. For some, the fact that the Titanic was sailing full speed ahead despite concerns about icebergs was Smith's biggest misstep. "Simply put, Titanic was traveling way too fast in an area known to contain ice; that's the bottom line," says Mark Nichol, webmaster for the Titanic and Other White Star Ships website.

Iceberg warnings went unheeded: The Titanic received multiple warnings about icefields in the North Atlantic over the wireless, but Corfield notes that the last and most specific warning was not passed along by senior radio operator Jack Phillips to Captain Smith, apparently because it didn't carry the prefix "MSG" (Masters' Service Gram). That would have required a personal acknowledgment from the captain. "Phillips interpreted it as non-urgent and returned to sending passenger messages to the receiver on shore at Cape Race, Newfoundland, before it went out of range," Corfield writes.

The binoculars were locked up: Corfield also says binoculars that could have been used by lookouts on the night of the collision were locked up aboard the ship - and the key was held by David Blair, an officer who was bumped from the crew before the ship's departure from Southampton. Some historians have speculated that the fatal iceberg might have been spotted earlier if the binoculars were in use, but others say it wouldn't have made a difference.

The steersman took a wrong turn: Did the Titanic's steersman turn the ship toward the iceberg, dooming the ship? That's the claim made in 2010 by Louise Patten, who said the story was passed down from her grandfather, the most senior ship officer to survive the disaster. After the iceberg was spotted, the command was issued to turn "hard a starboard," but as the command was passed down the line, it was misinterpreted as meaning "make the ship turn right" rather than "push the tiller right to make the ship head left," Patten said. She said the error was quickly discovered, but not quickly enough to avert the collision. She also speculated that if the ship had stopped where it was hit, seawater would not have pushed into one interior compartment after another as it did, and the ship might not have sunk as quickly.

Reverse thrust reduced the ship's maneuverability: Just before impact, first officer William McMaster Murdoch is said to have telegraphed the engine room to put the ship's engines into reverse. That would cause the left and right propeller to turn backward, but because of the configuration of the stern, the central propeller could only be halted, not reversed. Corfield said "the fact that the steering propeller was not rotating severely diminished the turning ability of the ship. It is one of the many bitter ironies of the Titanic tragedy that the ship might well have avoided the iceberg if Murdoch had not told the engine room to reduce and then reverse thrust."

The iron rivets were too weak: Metallurgists Tim Foecke and Jennifer Hooper McCarty looked into the materials used for the building of the Titanic at its Belfast shipyard and found that the steel plates toward the bow and the stern were held together with low-grade iron rivets. Those rivets may have been used because higher-grade rivets were in short supply, or because the better rivets couldn't be inserted in those areas using the shipyard's crane-mounted hydraulic equipment. The metallurgists said those low-grade rivets would have ripped apart more easily during the collision, causing the ship to sink more quickly that it would have if stronger rivets had been used. Other researchers have contested that claim, however.

There were too few lifeboats: Perhaps the biggest tragedy is that there were not enough lifeboats to accommodate all of the Titanic's more than 2,200 passengers and crew members. The lifeboats could accommodate only about 1,200 people - which was still in excess of the 1,060-person capacity that was the legal requirement for that time. "It seems that in 1912, in a way not dissimilar to our own box-ticking, responsibility-avoiding culture today, lack of effective oversight on the part of the authorities caused the consequences of the disaster to be much worse than they might have been," Corfield wrote.

Do these 10 causes cover everything, or are there still more factors I'm forgetting? Are there some lessons still unlearned from the Titanic tragedy? Feel free to weigh in with your reflections on the Titanic centennial in the comment space below.

More about the Titanic:

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

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The "unsinkable" Titanic was sunk by an iceberg, but there are other reasons why the tragedy that occurred 100 years ago this month was as tragic as it was. Even a century later, the case of the Titanic illustrates how technological failures often result from a succession of omissions, missteps and bad luck rather than one big mess-up.

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Titanic Survivors: What They Saw In Their Words video

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Titanic Survivors: What They Saw In Their Words video

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Titanic Survivors: What They Saw In Their Words

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Interviews recorded in the 1970's and 1980's. Survivors: Frank Prentice, Eva Hart, Edith Brown, Ruth Becker, Edith Rosenbaum.

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29 HAUNTING PHOTOS OF WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THE TITANIC SANK video

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29 HAUNTING PHOTOS OF WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THE TITANIC SANK video

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RARAS IMAGENES HISTORICAS QUE REQUIEREN UNA SERIA EXPLICACION

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29 HAUNTING PHOTOS OF WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THE TITANIC SANK

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We're all familiar with the story of the Titanic: At 11:39 p.m. on April 14, 1912, a young lookout named Frederick Fleet spotted an iceberg. His ship was headed straight for it. The Titanic made impact, and two hours and 40 minutes later, the boat was lost to the ocean forever.

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5 Real Titanic Survivors & Their Stories video

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5 Real Titanic Survivors & Their Stories video

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5 Real Titanic Survivors & Their Stories

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On the morning of April 15, 1912, Titanic Captain Edward John Smith gave the order to uncover the lifeboats and muster the passengers. This would be a day that some would not forget, and many would not survive. The following are five real Titanic survivors, and their fascinating stories.

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From people surviving the impossible to passengers who weren't so fortunate, here are 27 Haunting Titanic Facts. Subscribe to Talltanic http://goo.gl/wgfvrr 18. Titanic from bow to stern was 882 feet and nine inches long. That is over two and a half football fields in length. 17.

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Inside The Titanic (Cabins and Hallways)

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National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Robert Ballard discovered the Titanic and wants to preserve the most famous ship in history from plunder and decay. ➡ Subscribe: http://bit.ly/NatGeoSubscribe ➡ Get More Nat Geo Live: http://bit.ly/MoreNatGeoLive About Nat Geo Live (National Geographic Live): Thought-provoking presentations by today's leading explorers, scientists, and photographers.

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1912:  The Maiden Voyage of Titanic video

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1912:  The Maiden Voyage of Titanic video

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1912: The Maiden Voyage of the Titanic - 20th Century Almanac

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The 20th Century Almanac A series of documentaries that highlights the most important and interesting events of the 20th Century. Shocking events, big scandals, the most famous murders, the most important personalities of international politics. A large dose of knowledge about politics, culture and history.

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Dr Robert Ballard: The Man Who Discovered the RMS Titanic Opens Up at New Exhibit

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Nearly one hundred years after the fatal plight of the ship that was once believed to be unsinkable, the story of the RMS Titanic continues to fascinate generations. And the man who discovered the wreckage at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean detailed his moment of discovery to the press on Wednesday (April 11) at a new exhibit in Mystic, Connecticut.

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How Dr. Robert Ballard found the legendary lost ship.

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video

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This is the story on how Robert Ballard found the wreck of RMS Titanic the cover up story on the exploration on the wrecks of two lost US cold war submarines and Robert Ballard's return to the wreck to show the damage that was done not only due to mother nather but by salvagers and tourist landing submarines on the wreck and his hopes for the future of the wreck.