Ballard, Robert Duane (1942-...), is an American oceanographer who has advanced underwater exploration. His most famous discovery was the shipwrecked luxury liner Titanic in 1985. Ballard has helped design deep-sea research vehicles known as submersibles. In the early 1980's, he developed Argo-Jason, a remotely controlled submersible with video cameras and a detachable robot that could collect samples.