15-07-2025
Goodwood: Call to action for oceans at Future Lab
Sir David Attenborough warned in his latest film Ocean that humanity still knows more about space than the deep sea and issued a plea to protect the planet's last great wilderness. The message was echoed at the Goodwood Festival of Speed where Future Lab, an immersive exhibition, showcased cutting-edge marine science and technology at the West Sussex the exhibits was a 3D-printed model of The Endurance shipwreck which was discovered in 2022 after sinking on an Antarctic expedition in 1914. The event highlighted how innovation is helping scientists explore the ocean floor, track marine life, and preserve fragile ecosystems.
Future Lab also showcased the Seabed 2030 project, which aims to map the entire ocean floor by the end of the Hall, from the project, told BBC Radio Sussex: "We still don't have a complete map of the seabed. "People say we know more about the moon than the ocean - and they are right."The Future Lab also featured a 1.5m (4.9ft) model of The Endurance, the ship used by Sir Ernest Shackleton during his ill-fated expedition. The vessel was crushed by ice and sank in the Weddell Sea, but was found well-preserved more than a century later in 2022.
Elena Lewendon from the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust, which led the discovery, said: "It was pitch black down there, but the Antarctic Circumpolar Current protects the wreck from decay. We could still see paint on the hull." The team used defence-grade laser scanning and stitched together 25,000 high-resolution images to create a digital model accurate to the resulting 3D print, produced over 350 hours, includes remarkable details such as intact railings, the ship's wheel, and even artefacts like a flare gun believed to have been fired by Shackleton himself. "Most of the damage happened at the surface as the ship was crushed," said Ms Lewendon. "It went down 3,008 metres with quite a whack."Shackleton, who later lived in Eastbourne, East Sussex, famously sent a telegram to the press - not his wife - after returning via the Falklands.
