URI opens $17 million underseas science center

NARRAGANSETT, R.I.  - A new center for underwater exploration unveiled Monday will allow scientists on shore to participate in the research of ships thousands of miles away at sea while sending views of the ocean deep to classrooms and research labs across the country.

The Ocean Science and Exploration Center at the University of Rhode Island is the brainchild of URI professor Robert Ballard, who discovered the wreck of the Titanic in 1985. The facility cost about $17 million.

“We’re able to literally take the deepest and most remote parts of the world and put it into your living room, your classroom, your laboratory,“ Ballard said. “It’s a discovery platform.“

The new facility, the only of its kind in the country, hosts the Inner Space Center, which uses satellite and Internet technology to connect with seagoing research vessels run by URI, the Ocean Exploration Trust and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Those ships beam information from their sonar, video from their submersible vehicles and other data back to URI’s Inner Space Center, which can view the information and share it with similar facilities at the University of New Hampshire, Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut, two NOAA labs and even school classrooms.

Ballard said the center attempts to solve a basic problem: most scientists cannot spend weeks or months at sea waiting for sudden discoveries. But with new technology, leading ocean experts can be summoned to view an unexpected find at any time.

“Just think of it as a porthole, not a building, and there’s a world beyond it to explore,“ said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I. Besides the Inner Space Center, the new building also houses the Pell Marine Science Library and office, laboratory and computing space. In 2004, Rhode Island voters approved $14 million in
borrowing to build it. The rest was funded through government grants and private gifts.

During a ribbon cutting ceremony, NOAA Rear Adm. Jonathan Bailey said the Okeanos Explorer, one of the vessels that will work with the Inner Space Center, will be based in Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island. It’s the nation’s first ship dedicated solely to ocean exploration.