Celebrity marine explorer Bob Ballard says the Undersea Exploration Center to be completed in spring 2009 will be as integral to undersea exploration as the Johnson Space Center in Houston is to launching crucial missions into outer space....

...Rhode Island voters in 2004 narrowly approved a $14-million bond measure for the 41,000-square-foot center.

The remaining $1 million of the projected cost was secured through private donations.

The most impressive part of the facility will be the Inner Space Center, which will use a satellite and Internet system to communicate with professors and students at URI and around the world.

The center will have the capability to transmit video and audio data, including underwater imagery, from ships at sea to research facilities on land.