Titanic

The mighty ship stood bolt upright, an unforgettable and terrible sight, with  the  din of all  its riches smashing inside, as black as death itself against the starry night sky...Then all noise from the ship stopped...And at last, always gaining speed, Titanic slid beneath the sea like a collapsing skyscraper.

Titanic  witnessed  mankind  at  its heroic best and selfish worst. why and how did the Titanic ultimately sink on its first and last expedition? Neither the design nor the structure of the Titanic was accountable for the Titanic’s unforeseen demise. Rather the main reason was a lack of understanding of the limitations of technology on the part of those who should have known better.

In 1912, At the time of  her  launch, the Royal  Mail  Steamer (R.M.S) Titanic was the largest man-made moving object on Earth with build cost $7.5 million.The Titanic was the newest and most technologically advanced liner in the world. Despite all of its innovative technology, the ship sank on a clear night on its maiden voyage with the loss hundreds of lives. The unsinkable Titanic sank. R.M.S. Titanic, perhaps the most famous ship that ever sailed, hit an iceberg was about 100 feet tall spawned from a glacier in Greenland. The ship's doom was hastened when crewman opened a gangway door to try to load life boats from a lower level. They couldn't  reclose it, and  sea water  rushed in. And the next morning - April 15, 1912 - sank beneath the North Atlantic waves. She took 1,517 women, men and children to the bottom of  the ocean  with  her, including some of the most  famous  names of  her  time. It was  great ever disaster of  nineteenth century. Only 706 passengers and crew would survive the disaster.

One recent scientific theory holds that the moon's extremely close approach to Earth on Jan. 4, 1912, created such strong tides that it sent an array of icebergs south into the Titanic's path.

Technological change is very evident in the Titanic disaster. In an effort to prevent repeating their mistakes, the White Star Line modified several of their existing ships following the Titanic disaster. The changes were based on the design flaws that were assumed to have contributed to the disaster. Along with these design changes, the White Star Line, and all shipbuilding companies at the time, had newly established safety regulations, agreed upon by both the British and American governments, that they had to follow.

Wreck of the RMS Titanic

When the ship split in two at the surface, the stern section plummeted into the seabed, the stern itself  facing the ripped opening of  the bow section. The wreck of the RMS Titanic is located about 370 miles (600 km) south-southeast of the coast of Newfoundland, lying at a depth of about 12,500 feet (3,800 m). Until 1 September 1985, the location of the wreck was unknown. The wreck of RMS Titanic was discovered more than 73 years after its sinking, south of Newfoundland in the North Atlantic ocean, by a joint American-French expedition, led by oceanographer Jean-Louis Michel (Ifremer) and Dr. Robert Ballard (WHOI). The most notable discovery the team made was that the ship had split apart. Approximately 5,500 artefacts have been removed from the wreck. In 1993, 1994, 1996, 1998 and 2000, RMS Titanic Inc. carried out an intensive series of dives that led to the recovery of over 4,000 items in the first two expeditions alone.

Display in Museums

Many of these recoveries were put on display at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, and later as part of a travelling museum exhibit. The Merseyside Maritime Museum in the Titanic's home port of Liverpool also has an extensive collection  of  artefacts  from  the  wreck  located  within a permanent  exhibition  named 'Titanic, Lusitania and the Forgotten Empress'.

Visitors flow

Tourist  and  scientific visits to Titanic are still continuing. By April 2012,  100 years  since  the disaster and  nearly  25 since  the discovery of  the wreck, around 140 people  had  visited. On 14 April 2012 (the 100 th anniversary of the ship's sinking), the wreck of the Titanic became eligible for protection as a UNESCO  World  Heritage Site, and in the same month, Robert Ballard, the wreck's discoverer, has announced  of a plan to preserve the wreck of the Titanic by using deep-sea robots to paint the wreck with anti-fouling  paint, to help keep the wreck in its current state for all time.

Many scientists, including  are concerned  that visits by tourists  in  submersibles and the recovery of artifacts are hastening the decay of the wreck. Under water  microbes  have  been  eating  away at Titanic's steel since the ship sank, but because of  the extra damage caused  by visitors the National  Oceanic and  Atmospheric Administration estimates that `the hull and structure of  the ship may collapse to the ocean floor  within the next 50 years.`