Branson heads underwater in the name of science

Billionaire adventurer and Virgin supremo Richard Branson has announced his latest venture. After conquering inner space with his Virgin Galactic project, he has now set his sights on an even more uncharted environment - the very bottom of the ocean.
 
Unveiling his single-seater submarine Virgin Oceanic, Branson said the plan was to travel to the deepest places on earth. "More men have been to the moon than have been down further than 20,000 feet," he said.
 
The submersible "flies" through the water using a kind of "wing" and can apparently attain depths of more than 11km, withstanding the kind of extraordinary pressure that has made manned, and even robotic, travel to the deepest seabeds impossible until now.
 
The underwater plan would appear to have more a scientific bent than Branson's efforts at space exploration, which are designed to offer the richest people in the world the chance to leave the atmosphere for a few minutes.
 
There are five dives planned over a two-year period for the submersible - provided it passes rigorous safety checks. The first will be under the control of US sailor Chris Welsh, who will head to the bottom of the Mariana trench, more than 10,000 metres below the Pacific. It will be the first time anyone has visited the region since 1960.
 
On the second trip Branson himself will pilot the sub to the bottom of the Puerto Rico trench, the deepest point in the Atlantic with a depth of over 8.5km, and which has never been explored before. Other trenches in the Arctic, Southern and Indian Oceans will also be explored.
 
The Virgin sub was first conceived by adventurer Steve Fossett, a close friend of Branson who accompanied him on his ballooning exploits in the 1980s. He died in a mysterious plane crash in Nevada in 2007.
 
The unusual dolphin-shaped submersible was designed by Graham Hawkes and will be equipped with cameras and mapping equipment from Google. The footage and information will have serious scientific value.
 
The team at Virgin Oceanic is working closely with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and scientists from Hawaii, Alaska and Monterey Bay, hoping to studying life in some of the most inhospitable environments on earth. ·