Robert Ballard response

Robert started with the question on why NASA gets so much more funding than NOAA. NASA's one year budget would fund NOAA for 1000 years. The ocean makes up 72% of the worlds surface and very little of its has been explored. He showed a map of the world without the oceans and there was mountians in some spots and it was just flat in others. He said it was flat because no survey ship had been there. That amazed me becasue the ocean is on our planet and home and we don't know as much as we can about it. And even in our country 50% of the land is under water and we have better maps of mars than our own country. That seems crazy becasue we can use what is here not what is on mars. It also suprised me that the average depth of the earth is 12000 feet below the sea. The sea is one of the richest places on the planet with huge deposits of ore so why aren't we taping in to these. Robert talked so much about the scietific wonders of the ocean that it reallty made me think about his question on why NASA gets so much more money than NOAA. Why aren't we explioting the recources that are on earth and cheaper to get to than ones that are possibly in space. Robert also talked about how they are using the dicovery and adventure of the ocean to motivate kids and get them interested in science and other subjects so that they can compete with kids from other countries. Robert ended with another question: Why are we looking to colonize the moon but not the ocean? Again it would probably be cheaper to habitate the ocean than the stars.
I've read every book Clive Cussler has written and all of his series have something to do with the ocean. I thought that he had used writers licsence to write his books but this talk made me realize that most of it is true. The reason I bring this up is becasue I would actually consider having a carrear in ocean research becasue I like science and the prospect of discovery. This talk really made me think about the what ifs in the world and that just makes me want to learn more.