cruise liner

Name: Oasis of the Seas
Where: Florida
Cost: $1.2 billion
Estimated Completion: This year
The Challenge: Build an 18-story-tall superliner with more outdoor space

When the Oasis of the Seas sets sail later this year, it will claim the record for biggest passenger ship, with space for 6,300 passengers, 2,000 more than any other ship. But it will also claim the most rooms with balconies, the biggest onboard swimming pool, and the first at-sea, tree-filled, outdoor park.

Oceanographer Robert Ballard is returning to the Titanic, but it’s not the same sunken ship he found in 1985. The deep ocean has been steadily dismantling the once-great cruise liner, and scientists say the process is unlike any they’ve ever seen. “Even if we could stop it, I wouldn’t,”says forensic archaeologist Charles Pellegrino.