James Cameron wants to be the first man in 50 years to venture to the deepest point on the ocean floor. The "Avatar" director is finding locations for the movie's sequel, which is to be set in the oceans of the movie's fictional planet, Pandora.
More than 500 people have ventured into space, twelve of whom have walked on the moon's surface, but only two people have dived to the deepest point in the Earth's oceans. On January 23, 1960, explorers Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh dove via their sub, the Trieste, into the Pacific Ocean's Marianas Trench, a 1,600-mile-long, arc-shaped, undersea chasm east of the Philippines. With more than a mile to go, the outer layer of a porthole cracked under the pressure of six miles of sea water. As they told the UK's Daily Mail, "It was a pretty hairy experience." Nonetheless, they reached 35,810 feet below sea level. To date, no one has broken the record.
But it looks like James Cameron is on his way.
He has already commissioned a submarine made from high-tech composite materials and powered by electric motors. This personal submarine will dive deeper than any commercial subs out there currently being designed to dive up to a half mile down. Cameron's sub needs to be able to survive the enormously powerful water pressure present miles below the ocean's surface. And if it does everything Cameron hopes, it could win the Ocean X Prize for "oceanographic research, exploration, conservation and healing."
Cameron will dive to the same place Piccard and Walsh did, known as Challenger Deep, located at the southern end of the Mariana Trench. At seven miles down, it's deeper than Mt. Everest is tall.
It's unclear exactly how Cameron's submarine will work, but this is how the submarine used in 1960 worked. Their submarine, the Trieste, wasn't hooked up to any ship floating on the surface water, as most deep-diving crafts are.
The ship was made of two parts: a huge cigar-shaped balloon filled with 22,500 gallons of the lighter-than-water liquid petrol to provide buoyancy. Underneath this balloon was the tiny steel sphere holding the pilots. It worked like a hot air balloon underwater, since the petrol in the balloon could not be compressed, so it could keep its shape even in great pressure.
For the submarine to descend to the bottom, it was weighed down with nine tons of iron pellets. When they reached the sea floor and wanted to rise again, they simply let of the iron pellets.
The first explorers remarked at how odd it was to see living creatures at seven miles deep. Had they left their metal vessel, the water pressure would have collapsed their lungs, killing them immediately. And yet, exotic sea creatures floating by all around them.
Maybe those same creatures will be able to inspire Cameron for the "Avatar" sequel.
Credit: Black smoker at Logatchev; Bremen University 2004
Tags: Design, Engineering, Movies, Submarine, Underwater Archaeology
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