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And yet Ballard now talks about searching around Howland.
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NOAA is funding Nautilus for deep water mapping around Howland, both this year and again in 2021. This year they were using the side scan off the ROV, which was good down to about 4000 meters, but in 2021 he'll be using a pack of AUVs to map the deeper water.
So, if someone was already paying him to go map around Howland, its easy to say he'll do some searching in case the image of a L-10E shows up. Otherwise, I don't think he'd be going there.
Personally, based upon my interactions with him this past trip, I think he's hooked on the Nikumaroro hypothesis.
Andrew