Summary
Located in the western pacific, the Mariana Trench is the deepest part of the ocean, plunging down 11km.
Down there it's pitch black, icy cold and the pressure is immense.
The only time it was visited, was over 50 years ago by US naval lieutenant Don Walsh and Swiss engineer Jacques Picard.
Now four teams of explorers are risking their lives in a new race to the deep.
Rebecca Morelle travels to California to meet former property developer Chris Welsh who is hoping to travel by himself to the bottom of the trench in a five metre long torpedo like submarine equipped with wings and a tail fin.
Her next stop is with the Triton team, who take her for a ride under the Caribbean sea in one of their submersibles, a prototype for the vessel that will be able to travel to the Mariana Trench.
Rebecca also reports on a project being lead by James Cameron, the director of the film Titanic. And her final visit is to DOER Marine, where Liz Taylor tells her about the company’s plans to build a reusable submarine.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I'm Rory Stewart and I grew up wanting to be a hero and I'm still fascinated by the ideas of heroism. |
| 0:08.9 | In my new series, I'm taking in the long sweep of history from Achilles to Zelensky and asking, what is a hero? |
| 0:16.2 | Simply doing your job, being a decent human being. |
| 0:20.0 | A true hero is someone who just kind of shines by their own light, |
| 0:23.9 | and that light is to be recognised by others. |
| 0:26.5 | The Long History of Heroism with me, Rory Stewart. |
| 0:29.5 | Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:32.6 | Thank you for downloading from the BBC. |
| 0:35.4 | For details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use, |
| 0:39.5 | go to BBCworldservice.com slash podcasts. |
| 0:47.3 | There's a rock right there. |
| 0:52.1 | It's midnight, and we're several hundred metres off a remote stretch of the Bahamas coastline |
| 0:57.8 | crammed into a small, inflatable boat. |
| 1:03.4 | In total darkness, the skipper leans over the side with a torch, trying to guide us through treacherously shallow waters. |
| 1:13.6 | Jagged coral is all around. It's only like 20 yards. |
| 1:15.6 | It's only a 20-yard gap that you can get through. |
| 1:19.6 | We're trying to get out to open water to meet up with a submarine that will take me deep beneath the sea. |
| 1:26.6 | But at the moment, the shallow seem to be much more perilous. |
| 1:31.5 | So we appear to be stuck. |
| 1:35.8 | We're still moving. |
| 1:37.7 | Okay, they're optimistic. |
| 1:39.0 | I'm not so optimistic. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.