Deep Sea Pioneer Victor Vescovo Takes Astronaut to the Ocean Floor

Victor Vescovo—a renowned undersea explorer and former Naval officer, and Dr. Kathy Sullivan—an oceanographer and retired astronaut, just traveled 35,000 feet below the ocean’s surface.

This makes Sullivan, 68, the first person to both walk in space and descend to the deepest point in the ocean, known as the Challenger Deep, which is located about 200 miles southwest of Guam, The New York Times reports.

**A crew member on three Space Shuttle missions, Dr. Kathy Sullivan was the first American woman to walk in space on October 11, 1984.**

Vescovo, a sharp grandson of Italian immigrants who came to the U.S. in the late 19th century, funded Sunday’s mission that broke glass ceilings and showcased new frontiers of human exploration, both above and below.

Vescovo pilots the two-person, state-of-the-art submersible that is capable of taking thousands of trips across the vastly unexplored swaths of the ocean floor.

The latest dive and Vescovo’s new tech have put him in a class with SpaceX and others who are on the leading edge of human discovery.

Here’s Vescovo in a recent TED talk discussing the future of deep sea travel: