2/3 of the planet is water. 95% of the oceans are unexplored.
A professional team aeronautics engineers out of Maryland wants to build a robot boat to explore the world. They are working on the Mark VI: the Mark I was constructed in the early 1990s.
I'm not sure whether they will make their funding goals, but I thought the people here might be interested in the website:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/robotboat/robotboat-mark-vi Funding deadline in Friday afternoon, Eastern Time, USA.
If funded, their plans will NOT be open source, though their data will be.
