Famous for his discovery of the wreck of the Titanic, Robert Ballard (with Malcolm McConnell) tells the story of his research adventures in Exploration (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £20, ISBN 0297815040).
Occasionally constipated in tone – “That brief tethered flight of our little ROV had been exactly the field test of the fiber-optic technology that I had promised the navy I would build and deploy less than four years earlier” – the excitement of Ballard’s work breaks through. And that includes his brilliant link-ups with students and museums: as one of the remote controlled submarines explores a sunken wreck, the images are shared instantly.
