Episode 4 - Inner Vs Outer Space
45minAfter half a century traversing the world's oceans, Ballard has figured out how to use remote technology to explore the bottom of the sea half a world away ... and pick up lunch at his local deli all in the same afternoon. But now, dark forces are conspiring against ocean exploration. The world is running out of room. Earth's population has tripled in only 100 years. Livable land is almost maxed. Some say we can grow more food and find more room to live in outer space. Maybe even move to Mars. But is Space really the answer? Bob Ballard thinks it's on our own planet ... not in the next galaxy. So he travels the world to find out what the rest of us think. Should we be reaching up ... or should we be pushing down? Our very survival may rest in making the right choice.
Episode 3 - Its Alive
45minOceanographer Dr. Robert Ballard is on a global quest to unravel one of the world's biggest mysteries - where life on Earth began. Ballard suspects life may have gotten started where hot rock and water collide in one of the world's most seemingly hostile environments - active volcanoes deep within the ocean. He tracks teams of scientists as they deploy robotic submersibles at deep sea volcanic rifts across the world's oceans, points his own ship to a dangerous undersea volcano in the Mediterranean, and hunts for answers amid hissing sulfur vents in Iceland and bubbling beakers at a NASA laboratory. Could the seething geologic heart of our planet actually have given birth to life on Earth?
Episode 2 - Wrecks Of The Abyss
45minDr. Robert Ballard is the Indiana Jones of the Alien Deep. He's on the hunt for the world's oldest shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea. Using tactics and technology developed over a 50 year career at sea, he is on a quest to uncover the lost history of the Ancient world. Who were these earliest of mariners and how did they live and die? How did the ocean and maritime culture help build those civilizations? The journey will take him deep in the chilly depths of the Mediterranean, to Hawai'i, and home to the U.S. He will find not just ancient wrecks but modern ones too, proving his assertion that the Alien Deep holds more treasure and history than all the world's museums combined.
Episode 1 - Fires of Creation
45minDr Robert Ballard is one of the world's most renowned ocean explorers , with such amazing finds as Titanic, the Battleship Bismarck and JFK's PT109 to his name. But this time he is going on a journey like no other. He's going to make an underwater odyssey down the world's tallest mountain! No, it's not Everest at 29,000 ft. It's Mauna Kea in Hawai'i. Standing 13,800 ft above sea level, this Pacific Giant also reaches down another 19,700 ft into the Alien Deep. Fighting unimaginable pressures, Ballard leads a two-submersible team right into the volcanic heart of the island and comes face to face with extraordinary creatures never before captured in 3D.