Just When You Thought Filmmakers Couldn't Sink Any Lower

[beamjockey]

James Cameron, director of The Terminator, Titanic, and Avatar, has descended to the deepest point in our planet's oceans, the Challenger Deep, in an odd-looking submersible.

Here's the National Geographic Society Web site for the expedition.

The first guys down there, who descended when I was in kindergarten, did not get any pictures because the Trieste kicked up clouds of silt, which did not settle before they ascended. (I understand Capt. Don Walsh was aboard one of the ships on Cameron's expedition.)

This time, the Deepsea Challenger carried 3-D cameras and fancy lights.

Perhaps Cameron might have been disappointed to find the ocean's bottom bleak, nearly featureless, and devoid of visible life. But the rest of us may be relieved to learn, having never before seen this inaccessible spot, that we haven't been missing anything interesting.

Nevertheless, this is exciting news. This vehicle can go anywhere in any ocean and shoot documentaries there. I look forward to hearing more about its travels.

Comments

[planettom.livejournal.com]

I had wondered why the Trieste never made a second descent, though maybe it was because the plexiglass cracked at 9000 meters (though they still continued to descend another 2000 meters; kind of surprising, I'd have thought that'd be an abort-abort-abort scenario).

I wondered if the guys in there (Pretty cool that Don Walsh is still alive and was involved with Cameron's expedition) decided, upon resurfacing, that they'd cut it too close and it wasn't worth the risk. Or maybe the Navy, having achieved the milestone, thought a subsequent expedition wouldn't be worth the P.R. blow if the guys got killed.

It's interesting that Cameron descended 5 miles in the New Britain trench 3 weeks ago with surprisingly little fanfare. I guess it's deepest or nothing.

He did say he saw little shrimp-like critters at the bottom of Challenger Deep. The Trieste guys saw little fish. What hasn't been answered is, are they tasty?

[derekl1963.livejournal.com]

Trieste made plenty of additional dives, both in her original configuration and as refit/rebuilt as Trieste II. There just wasn't any point in going back to the trench after doing it once.

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

Trenchant commentary from Mr. Higgins!

[derekl1963.livejournal.com]

Between Trieste, Kaikō, Nereus, and now Deepsea Challenger... we've seen/explored maybe ten square meters of the bottom of the trench, and almost nothing of it's walls. It's a bit early to make judgements as to the presence of [visible] life. (Especially since Kaikō found bacterium.)

I'm much less interested in documentaries than I am in actual science... I'd damm sure hate for manned deep sea exploration to suffer the same public image fate ("if it's not bold and exciting it's not worth doing") as manned space exploration.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

I couldn't agree with you more. I was just shooting off my mouth, for fun.

In particular, Cameron had planned to get a core sample of the sediment, but his manipulator failed. It wouldn't surprise me if he returned to get the core. He's persistent. This is a guy who made three Mir dives just to recover his brother's trapped robot from the Titanic.

[derekl1963.livejournal.com]

My bad for over-reacting. I've just seen too many suggestions that he use the vehicle to film this (well studied) or that (even more studied) shipwreck or subsea geographical feature.