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A company that builds submarines for use by wealthy people with yachts is designing one to go to the deepest part of the ocean, the Mariana Trench.

Triton Submarines is a Vero beach, Fla.-based company that makes small submarines that can reach depths of 1,000 meters (about 3,300 feet). Usually they are bought by the kind of people that have yachts and lots of leisure time, or occasionally by institutions that are mounting scientific expeditions. The cost for this one is about $15 million.

This time the company is putting together a vehicle called the Triton 36,000 that can reach depths of 9,000 meters, or about 36,000 feet. It will be designed to dive at a speed of 500 feet per minute.

The technology that allows for this kind of deep diving is in the glass used in the cockpit. Rayotek Scientific designed the glass mixture, which is called borosilicate glass, protected by a layer of acrylic. The glass is designed to increase in strength as the pressure around it increases.

The cockpit is spherical, and allows the passengers and the pilot to see out better than in earlier deep submersible designs. The spherical shape also helps to even out the pressure on its surface. Pressures at the depths this submersible will go to can approach 1,000 times that at the surface.

The submarine is also designed with a fail-safe system and the cockpit can even eject. Pressurization is not a problem because the passenger compartment is maintained at one atmosphere.

L. Bruce Jones, CEO of Triton Subs, said the company has three interested buyers, and the likelihood is that they will run the gamut from adventurers to scientific institutions and industries such as oil exploration.

Jones said the plan is to test the vehicle at even higher pressures than it would experience at the bottom of the ocean before launching the first one. At the Triton's testing facility the submarine can be exposed to pressures as much as 10 times what it is designed for.

The last manned submersible vehicle -- and so far the only one -- to reach the Mariana Trench was the Trieste, in 1960. Other companies are also racing to build deep-sea vehicles. Film director James Cameron has commissioned one, and Virgin Group Chairman Richard Branson is building another.

Besides that there are only five man-rated vehicles that can reach depths exceeding 15,000 feet: Alvin (made famous by exploring the Titanic wreck) France's Nautile, China's Hai Ji and Japan's Shinkai.

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