Richard Branson launches ‘Virgin Oceanic’ to explore the depths of the ocean

Richard Branson is a man who knows no limits and after exploring space, he now wants to delve into the depths of the ocean and has unveiled his latest vessel, ‘Virgin Oceanic’, which will be used for this purpose

After reaching out to outer space, Richard Branson is now ready to plunge into the depths of the oceans as he has revealed his latest plans to do so. Richard Branson, the multi-billionaire businessman, is not only known for his business acumen, but also for the daring endeavors that he keeps on undertaking from time to time.

This time around, Richard Branson aims to explore the deepest trenches of the world, that lay below sea level and the only way to do that is through a specially-designed submarine which can withstand all that water pressure deep down in the ocean. For this purpose, Richard Branson’s engineers have designed a special submarine which they are calling, ‘Virgin Oceanic’. ‘Virgin Oceanic’ is a one-man submarine which can withstand pressure equal to 1,000 atm. For this purpose, the transparent dome of Virgin Oceanic has been cut out from pure quartz instead of glass because glass cannot withstand so much pressure underwater. The Virgin Oceanic travels at a speed of three knots and also has specially-designed ‘wings’ which can help it in moving from one place to another instead of going just up and down.

The Virgin Oceanic has life-supporting capacity of up to 24-hours, but it is being hoped that these round trips to the deepest parts of Earth will not take more than five hours.

The first dive will take place by the end of this year in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, which lies almost 11,000 miles below sea level. The first trip of the Virgin Oceanic will be piloted by Chris Welsh and later, Richard Branson himself will go below sea level to bring back samples from Mariana Trench.

The rest of the trips to the deepest corners of the world by Richard Branson and his team will be carried out over a span of five years.