Cameron is traveling by himself in a one-man submarine called the Deepsea Challenger. The tiny vessel — Cameron calls it a "vertical torpedo" — can withstand the incredible pressure of the deep sea. So, is the king of the world nuts or just curious? Perhaps both, but allow him to explain.
CAMERON QUOTE: I grew up on a steady diet of science fiction at a time when people where living a science fiction reality. People were going to the Moon, and Cousteau was exploring the ocean. And that's what I grew up with, what I valued from my childhood.
Doesn't this sound like the stupidest idea ever? Something tells me Cameron isn't a lifetime sub captain, nor is he a scientist. He directs campy sci-fi movies. Why not save the spot in the sub for some marine biologist that could do some good because that's what they're trained to do?
The only other time someone dived to the bottom of the Mariana Trench was in 1960. That was Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard and Navy Lt. Don Walsh. They used the Bathyscaphe Trieste, which was designed for the dive but still had some serious issues.
The descent to the ocean floor took 4 hours and 48 minutes at a descent rate of 0.9 metres per second (3.0 ft/s).After passing 9,000 meters one of the outer Plexiglas window panes cracked, shaking the entire vessel. The two men spent barely twenty minutes at the ocean floor, eating chocolate bars for sustenance. The temperature in the cabin was 7°C (45°F) at the time. While on the bottom at maximum depth, Piccard and Walsh unexpectedly regained the ability to communicate with the surface ship, USS Wandank (ATA-204), using a sonar/hydrophone voice communications system.[6] At a speed of almost a mile per second (about five times the speed of sound in air), it took about seven seconds for a voice message to travel from the craft to the surface ship and another seven seconds for answers to return.
He may never do another commentary talking about how facehuggers relate to the Vietnam War somehow.
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