When Scott Cassell was a boy of six, he saw a movie that would set the course of his life: Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. As Scott watched the Giant Squid attack the Nautilus he knew his life would involve the ocean, submersibles, and Giant Squid. In elementary school Scott read about the “Deepest Dive” of the US Navy’s Bathyscaphe Trieste, in which two people dove 7 miles to the bottom of the ocean to the Challenger Deep of the Marianas Trench. As a child Scott's imagination went wild. Inspired, he designed submersibles, learned to SCUBA dive, and then became a commercial hard-hat diver/welder at the age of 15.

When Scott was a young man he met Dr. Andreas "Andy" Rechnitzer who soon become his best friend, adopted father, and mentor in undersea exploration. Dr. Rechnitzer’s historic achievements are numerous. He was one of the first divers in the US and developed a SCUBA dive-training program that formed the basis for the modern day world-wide recreational SCUBA certifying agencies. After they became friends Scott learned that Andy had developed and run the historic program of the bathyscaphe Trieste and the Deepest Dive into the Challenger Deep that Scott idolized as a kid! Andy encouraged Scott to enter the world of submersibles and soon thereafter Scott earned the prestigious title of U.S. Coast Guard rated submersible pilot/captain.

It was through Andy that Scott met Will Forman, another historic figure responsible for building America’s first deep submersible, the Deep Jeep. U.S. Navy Lieutenant Will Forman piloted fhe Deep Jeep to a depth of 2,000 feet and provided the US Navy with information that led the country in a new direction of powered submersible exploration.

When Scott and Will met, Will was working on a human powered submersible, the DaVinci II, and Scott quickly volunteered to help. Scott found himself in Will’s back yard where this magnificent machine was engineered and built. As Scott helped lower the DaVinci II into the test pool next to the garage, Will mentioned another project he always want to do but never did called the Ocean Voyager. Andy Rechnitzer was also interested in it. Ocean Voyager’s mission was to explore the oceans in a scientific transect to advance our understanding of the global ocean environments.

The Ocean Voyager concept vehicle was a 100 foot long submarine, capable of 20,000 foot depths. The vehicle was designed to glide underwater like a sailplane. It had three 9 foot interior diameter glass spheres that made up the pressure hull, would support a human crew and life support for three, and science instrumentation. A gas chamber filled the remaining 70 feet of the glider. Hydrazine pellets mixed with seawater would create a gas for ascent, which would be vented for descent along a glide slope. This goal was to design a quiet energy efficient system for improved science research. Unfortunately, the project was cancelled in the early seventies.

In Summer 2003 Scott revisited the discussion about the Ocean Voyager concept with Andy Rechnitzer. Andy expressed concern over failing fisheries, the seas impact on climate, and the 98% of the ocean that is as yet unexplored. Scott promised Andy that if he could implement the Ocean Voyager concept he would and in doing so set a new course of his life. Since Andy’s passing on August 22nd 2005, Scott has made the Undersea Voyager Project his life’s mission.

Scott read an article about the “X-Prize” for a private sector reusable manned spaceship with a goal of driving private sector innovation and industry. Scott saw the analogy between government funded space travel and government funded submarine programs and decided to refit smaller cheaper submersibles to carry out ocean research, possibly at a fraction of the cost, using private funds. With this concept he founded the Undersea Voyager Project with a goal of traversing the world's oceans while including the global scientific community.