We are fortunate to live in an age when we can explore two ocean worlds in our solar system. Despite being an ocean scientist, I’ve had one foot in the space community during the latter half of my career. I support NASA’s intrepid endeavors and am grateful for their work here on Earth, notably the PACE observatory launched earlier this year.
BACK ON EARTH
On Earth, our understanding of our own ocean is woefully inadequate.
Nations are making ocean policy decisions based on best-available data. Yet, only 52% of US waters and 26% of the global ocean are bathymetrically mapped to modern standards. Even less has been explored—we’ve seen less than 1% of the deep seafloor.
I’m often asked why more technology funding is available to explore space than the ocean. My response: the ocean science community struggles to generate and unify behind cohesive, big priorities. When we do, we don’t incentivize potential industry partners enough to join us. Whether revitalizing ocean observing assets, enhancing ocean data management, recapitalizing the federal research fleet, or addressing other potential priorities, government and academia must articulate clear needs so the private sector can envision viable and sustainable business models. Industry must see themselves as real partners. Otherwise, critical support from Congress or capital investors will never materialize.
THE CHALLENGES
The percentage of US waters mapped increased by a mere 11% between 2017 and 2024. Without more on-ramps for industry to employ their crewed and uncrewed assets, the US is not likely to meet our goals to map our waters deeper than 40 meters (131 feet) by 2030 and waters shallower than 40 meters by 2040. To increase the pace of data acquisition and map all US waters by the deadlines, the interagency National Ocean Mapping, Exploration, and Characterization Council aspires to increase public-private partnerships by reexamining current external funding opportunities and exploring new mechanisms.
The ocean science community itself targeted 2030 as a pivotal year for the ocean. There are several other concurrent initiatives to learn about and protect it, including Seabed 2030 to map the entire seafloor, 30 x 30 to protect 30% of the ocean, and Vision2030 to identify common measures of success for United Nations Ocean Decade Challenges, all by 2030.
Also in 2030, back in space, Europa Clipper will finally arrive in the Jovian system and get to work.
THE FUTURE?
In 2030, as we begin exploring a new ocean world, how many of the ocean milestones will we actually have met on Earth? How far will we have progressed in mapping our own ocean? Together, we have five years to bring all our assets to bear to achieve these goals. Otherwise, the familiar quote “we have better maps of Mars than we do of our own ocean floor” will be replaced by “we’ll soon know more about Europa’s ocean than we do about Earth’s,” and that’s a state of affairs that our ocean—with all its competing interests—cannot afford.
This feature appeared in ON&T Magazine’s 2025 Special Edition, The Future of Ocean Technology, Vol. 5, to read more access the magazine here.
