[tweetle_beetle]

I'm not sure the word explorer should ever be diluted to be just sitting down in a vehicle as a passenger. At worst, they sat on a plane to Newfoundland for a number of hours, sat on a boat to get to the launch site and sat in a submarine for a few hours (assuming a successful itinerary).

Mitigating factors for an explorer should be (imho): novel destination, novel experience of natural forces, novel challenge of actively piloting/driving, unusual physical hardship, unusual mental hardship, novel engineering challenge, unusual training requirements, committing to significant unknowns, etc.

[peteradio]

novel destination:

  few have been to Titanic

novel experience of natural forces:

  few have experienced the significant pressures involved

novel challenge of actively piloting/driving:

   ever drive a car while actively sweating bullets and shitting bricks?

unusual physical hardship, unusual mental hardship:

   see above

novel engineering challenge:

   See significant pressures.

unusual training requirements:

   Can't say this was required since the interface was a console controller

committing to significant unknowns:

   See engineering challenges + novel materials