<p class="ingestion featured-caption">The OceanXplorer off the coast of the Azores.Mario Tadinac/National Geographic</p><ul class="summary-list"><li>OceanXplorer, a 285-foot <a target="_blank" class href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-transatlantic-autonomous-research-vessel-ship-across-atlantic-ocean-mayflower-2020-9">research vessel</a>, contains cutting-edge tools for ocean science.</li><li>Billionaire Ray Dalio bought the former oil ship and helped transform it into a world-leading research vessel.</li></ul><p>The <a target="_blank" class href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/ray-dalio-oceangate-titan-titanic-submersible-ocean-exploration-oceanx-bridgewater-2023-7">OceanXplorer</a> is both science and spectacle.</p><p>The 285-foot research vessel gives ocean scientists access to virtual reality, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ultra-rich-submarines-submersible-jetskis-yacht-superyacht-gigayachts-monaco-seamagine-2023-9">submersibles</a>, a helicopter, and onboard laboratories, all in a setting designed to evoke a Marvel movie.</p><p>"It has basically every tool a researcher could dream of for exploring the deep," Eric Stackpole, a remotely operated vehicle expert, told Business Insider.</p><p>Stackpole is part of a team that traveled on the ship from a volcanic archipelago in the North Atlantic to just south of the North Pole for National Geographic's new show "OceanXplorers."</p><p>See what it was like to follow polar bears from the sky and study sharks from the seafloor.</p>