[11]: 147  An earlier concept for an Ocean Everest submersible included a two-person crew and a carbon fiber hull; DOE stated they intended to have it certified by the American Bureau of Shipping with a pressure rating of 30,000 psi (210 MPa; 2,000 atm), giving it a 2:1 factor of safety.

[13] The resulting Deepsearch crewed submersible was among the competitors to return to Challenger Deep, developed by DOER with financial support from Google's Eric Schmidt.

[18] Deepsearch was intended to carry a crew of two or three; like the prior Deep Flight prototypes, it was designed to be positively buoyant, with flow over winglets providing descending force,[11]: 146–147  allowing it to reach the bottom in 90 minutes.

[14][19][20] In addition to the hydrodynamic winglets, DOER was investigating the use of a thick glass spherical pressure hull and floatation using packed ceramic spheres rather than syntactic foam.

In 2009, DOER coordinated efforts from multiple agencies supplying underwater map data, resulting in the Ocean module of Google Earth, released in version 5.0.