James Cameron back on surface after deepest ocean dive - BBC News BBC News James Cameron back on surface after deepest ocean dive By Rebecca Morelle Science reporter, BBC News, Guam 26 March 2012 From the section Science & Environment comments Close share panel Media captionJames Cameron: "It's a heck of a ride, you're just screaming down and screaming back up" Hollywood director James Cameron has returned to the surface after plunging nearly 11km (seven miles) down to the deepest place in the ocean, the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific. He made the solo descent in a submarine called Deepsea Challenger, taking over two hours to reach the bottom. He spent more than four hours exploring the ocean floor, before a speedy ascent back to the surface. His craft was kitted out with cameras so he could film the deep in 3D. "It was absolutely the most remote, isolated place on the planet," Mr Cameron told BBC News.

"I really feel like in one day I've been to another planet and come back." This is only the second manned expedition to the ocean's deepest depths - the first took place in 1960 when US Navy Lt Don Walsh and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard spent about 20 minutes on the ocean floor in a bathyscaphe called the Trieste. Lt Walsh, who is now in his 80s, joined Mr Cameron and his team of engineers out at sea for the dive. "It did bring back a lot of memories, just being out there and remembering what we did there," he told BBC News. "It was really grand." Image caption Director James Cameron resurfaced after spending four hours on the ocean floor Mr Cameron has spent the past few years working in secret with his team of engineers to design and build the craft, which weighs 11 tonnes and is more than 7m (23ft) long. He describes it as a "vertical torpedo" that slices through the water allowing him a speedy descent. The extraordinary attention to detail prevented him from suffering from too much nervousness.

"I can't say that I wasn't apprehensive in the last few days and even the weeks leading up to this, but there's another part of my mind that really understands the engineering and knows why we did everything the way we did," he said. "Any apprehension I had I left at the hatch. When I went into the sub, I was all pilot at that point." What lurks in the deep? Ocean trench: Scroll 11,000m down The tiny compartment that the film-maker sits in is made from thick steel, which is able to resist the 1,000 atmospheres of pressure he experienced at full ocean depth. The rest of the vertical column is made from a material called syntactic foam - a solid made mostly of hollow "microballoons" - giving it enough buoyancy to float back up. The sub has so many lights and cameras that it is like an underwater TV studio - with Mr Cameron able to direct and film the action from within. He intends to release a documentary. It also has robotic arms, allowing him to collect samples of rocks and soils, and a team of researchers are working alongside the director to identify any new species. He says that science is key to his mission.

But the first task was to get to the inky depths - which despite untold hours of training, still surprised Mr Cameron. "My reference frame was going to the Titanic 10 or 12 years ago, and thinking that was the deepest place I could ever imagine," he recalled. "On this dive I blazed past Titanic depth at 12,000 ft and was only a third of the way down, and the numbers keep going up and up and up on the depth gauge. "You just kind of look at them with a sense of disbelief, and you wonder if the bottom is ever going to be there." At the bottom, Mr Cameron encountered incredibly fine silt, which he had to be careful not to disturb. He said he spotted a few small, as-yet unidentified life forms but found the depths to be a "sterile, almost desert-like place".

Media captionBefore the dive, James Cameron told the BBC's Rebecca Morelle why he was risking it all While manned exploration had until now seen a 52-year hiatus, scientists have used two robotic unmanned vehicles to explore the Mariana Trench: Japan's Kaiko made a dive there in 1995 and the US-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's vessel Nereus explored the deep in 2008. Other teams, such as Scotland's Oceanlab, have also been dropping simple landers loaded with bait and cameras into the deepest ocean. While places like the Mariana Trench were once thought to be of little interest, there has been a recent resurgence of scientific interest in the deep. Scientists are finding life that can resist the colossal pressures, from deep-sea fish to shrimp-like scavengers called amphipods, some of which can reach 30cm (1ft) long. They are also trying to understand the role that deep seas trenches play in earthquakes - these cracks in the sea floor are formed at the boundary of two tectonic plates and some believe the push and pull taking place deep underwater could be the cause of major earthquakes, such as the 2011 quake that resulted in such devastation in Japan.

But some scientists question whether manned exploration provides the best platform for scientific research. Dr Alan Jamieson, from Oceanlab, said: "I think what James Cameron has done is a really good achievement in terms of human endeavour and technology. "But my feeling is that manned submersibles like this are limited in scientific capabilities when compared to other systems, mostly due to the fact there is someone in it. Remote or autonomous systems can collect a far greater volume of useful scientific data for far less money." Media captionEngineer David Wotherspoon explains how Deepsea Challenger works Mr Cameron says he does not want this dive to the deep to be a one-off, and wants to use it as a platform for ocean exploration. His craft may also soon be joined by other manned submersibles vying to reach the ocean's deepest depths. One of these crafts, the DeepFlight Challenger, belongs to former real estate investor Chris Welsh, and is backed by Virgin's Richard Branson. It is about to begin its water trials. Its design is based on a plane, and Mr Welsh says he will be "flying" down to the deepest ocean. Google's Eric Schmidt has helped to finance another sub being built by a US marine technology company called Doer Marine.

They want this sub to carry two to three people, and are placing a heavy emphasis on science. And Triton submarines, a Florida-based submersible company, intends to build a sub with a giant glass sphere at its centrepiece to take tourists down to the deepest ocean for $250,000 a ticket. James Cameron Completes Record-Breaking Mariana Trench Dive James Cameron Completes Record-Breaking Mariana Trench Dive Solo sub dive is deepest ever. View Images The DEEPSEA CHALLENGER sub during a February test off Papua New Guinea. Photograph by Mark Thiessen, National Geographic At noon on Monday, local time, (10 p.m. Sunday ET) James Cameron 's "vertical torpedo" sub broke the surface of the western Pacific, carrying the National Geographic explorer and filmmaker back from the Mariana Trench 's Challenger Deep—Earth's deepest, and perhaps most alien, realm.

Related Content Tourists Try to See Great Barrier Reef Before It's Gone The first human to reach the 6.8-mile-deep (11-kilometer-deep) undersea valley solo, Cameron arrived at the bottom with the tech to collect scientific data, specimens, and visions unthinkable in 1960, when the only other manned Challenger Deep dive took place, according to members of the National Geographic expedition. After a faster-than-expected, roughly 70-minute ascent, Cameron's sub, bobbing in the open ocean, was spotted by helicopter and would soon be plucked from the Pacific by a research ship's crane. Earlier, the descent to Challenger Deep had taken 2 hours and 36 minutes. Expedition member Kevin Hand called the timing of the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER sub's ascent "perfect." "Jim came up in what must have been the best weather conditions we've seen, and it looks like there’s a squall on the horizon," said Hand, a NASA astrobiologist and National Geographic emerging explorer .

Before surfacing about 300 miles (500 kilometers) southwest of Guam, Cameron spent hours hovering over Challenger Deep's desert-like seafloor and gliding along its cliff walls, the whole time collecting samples and video. Among the 2.5-story-tall sub's tools are a sediment sampler, a robotic claw, a "slurp gun" for sucking up small seacreatures for study at the surface, and temperature, salinity, and pressure gauges. (See pictures of Cameron's sub .) Now "the science team is getting ready for the returned samples," said NASA's Hand. Cameron—best known for creating fictional worlds on film ( Avatar , Titanic , The Abyss )—is expected to announce his initial findings later today. After analysis, full results are to be published in a future edition of National Geographic magazine . ( Video: Cameron Dive Is an Exploration First. ) "The Ultimate Test" Retired U.S. Navy Capt. Don Walsh , who descended to Challenger Deep in 1960, said he was pleased to hear that Cameron had reached the underwater valley safely.

"That was a grand moment, to welcome him to the club," Walsh, said in a telephone interview from the sub-support ship. "There're only three of us in it, and one of them—late Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard—"is dead. Now it's just Jim and myself." Expedition physician Joe MacInnis called Cameron’s successful descent today "the ultimate test of a man and his machine." After breaching the ocean surface, the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER was first spotted by a helicopter owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen , a longtime Cameron friend. Allen was on the scene for the historic dive and posted live updates of the event on Twitter from aboard his yacht, the Octopus, which is providing backup support for the mission. Science in Three Dimensions Throughout the Mariana Trench dive, 3-D video cameras were kept whirring, and not just for the benefit of future audiences of planned documentaries. "There is scientific value in getting stereo images because ... you can determine the scale and distance of objects from stereo pairs that you can't from 2-D images," Cameron told National Geographic News before the dive. But "it's not just the video.

The sub's lighting of deepwater scenes—mainly by an 8-foot (2.5-meter) tower of LEDs—is "so, so beautiful," said Doug Bartlett , a marine biologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California. "It's unlike anything that you'll have seen from other subs or other remotely operated vehicles," said Bartlett, chief scientist for the DEEPSEA CHALLENGE project , a partnership with the National Geographic Society and Rolex. (The Society owns National Geographic News.) (Read more about DEEPSEA CHALLENGE science .) Medical, Psychological Rigors As the 57-year-old explorer emerged from the sub's coffin—tight 43-inch-wide (109-centimeter-wide) cockpit, a medical team stood at the ready. But if recent test dives—including one to more than five miles (eight kilometers meters) down—are any indication, Cameron should be physically fine, despite having been unable to extend his arms and legs for hours, expedition physician Joe MacInnis told National Geographic News before the dive.

"Jim is going to be a little bit stiff and sore from the cramped position, but he's in really good shape for his age, so I don't expect any problems at all," said MacInnis, a long-time Cameron friend. In addition, the sub's "pilot sphere" has a handlebar, which Cameron could use to pull himself occasionally up during the dive. "Usually, shifting position is all that's required to buy yourself another few hours," he said. ( Video: how sub sphere protects Cameron. ) Because Cameron had prepared extensively for the dive, he should be in good psychological health, said Walter Sipes, an aeronautics psychologist at NASA's Johnson Space Center. "He's got prior experience doing this, not just in the simulator but also training dives ... and he's an adventurer, so I really don't think they'll have any issues to worry about," said Sipes, who is not part of the expedition. Still, if Cameron plans to conduct more dives—which the team has indicated he will—Sipes recommends he get plenty of rest in between or risk mental fatigue. "When you start to get fatigued, you start making mistakes," he added.

"And since he's down there solo, he can't afford that. He's a [potential] single-point failure." It should be at least a few weeks before any further DEEPSEA CHALLENGE dives, as the director's next breakneck mission will take him from the middle of the Pacific to London, where he's due at a premiere of his Titanic 3-D Wednesday. ( Animation: Cameron's Mariana Trench dive compressed into one minute. ) "A Turning Point" By returning humans to the so-called hadal zone—the ocean 's deepest level, below 20,000 feet (6,000 meters)—the Challenger Deep expedition may represent a renaissance in deep-sea exploration. While remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs, are much less expensive than manned subs, "the critical thing is to be able to take the human mind down into that environment," expedition member Patricia Fryer said, "to be able to turn your head and look around to see what the relationships are between organisms in a community and to see how they're behaving—to turn off all the lights and just sit there and watch and not frighten the animals, so that they behave normally.

"That is almost impossible to do with an ROV," said Fryer, a marine geologist at the Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics & Planetology. Andy Bowen, project manager and principal developer of the Nereus , an ROV that explored Challenger Deep in 2009, said a manned mission also has the potential to inspire public imagination in a way a robot can't. "It's difficult to anthropomorphize machines in a way that engages everyone's imagination—not in the same way that having boots on the ground, so to speak, can do," said Bowen, who's not an expedition member. Biological oceanographer Lisa Levin, also at Scripps, said that the DEEPSEA CHALLENGE program's potential for generating public interest in deep-ocean science is as important as any new species Cameron might have discovered. "I consider Cameron to be doing for the trenches what Jacques Cousteau did for the ocean many decades ago," said Levin, who's part of the team but did not participate in the seagoing expedition. At a time of fast-shrinking funds for undersea research, "what scientists need is the public support to be able to continue exploration and research of the deep ocean," Levin said.

DEPTH PROBE: Nanaimo engineer helps explore ocean's deepest depths - Nanaimo News DEPTH PROBE: Nanaimo engineer helps explore ocean's deepest depths Tim Bulman outside the DeepSea Challenger. — image credit: Photo contributed by Chris Bush - Nanaimo News Bulletin posted May 15, 2012 at 6:00 AM— updated May 15, 2012 at 8:16 AM Only three men have ventured to the deepest recorded point on the surface of our planet. Movie director and ocean explorer James Cameron joined that exclusive club March 26 when made the first successful solo dive – the only human being ever to do so – to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, almost 36,000 feet below the surface of the south Pacific. It was the first manned dive to the bottom of the trench since 1960 when U.S. Navy Lieut. Don Walsh and Swiss oceanographer and engineer Jacques Piccard crewed the bathyscaphe Trieste.

To descend and return safely from the crushing, cold depths of the trench, Cameron relied on a carefully selected team of engineers, which included Tim Bulman, owner of Nanaimo-based Indepth Marine. Bulman, 42, is an electrical engineer, commercial diver and submersible pilot/technician with 14 years experience working with manned submersibles and deep-ocean remotely-operated vehicles. Bulman moved his company to Nanaimo in 2003, the same year he met Cameron and was hired to rebuild lighting control systems aboard two Deep Rover submersibles purchased from a French film company and used to film the documentary movie Aliens of the Deep. When the aging electronics proved unreliable, Bulman established his credibility by retrofitting the submersibles with new lighting controls that worked. In the world of manned submersibles, reliable people and equipment get recycled. Someone always knows someone else from previous projects. The same people often work on and retrofit existing craft and technological innovations in the business are frequently the result of modifying or rejigging existing technology.

In 2004, while working with Cameron's team on a Discovery Channel documentary about the Titanic – Bulman worked on fibre optic data links for remote controlled submersibles that probed the interior of the wreck – Cameron invited him to work on the DeepSea Challenge. "In manned submersibles, it's a pretty small network of people world-wide, so when [Cameron] bought the subs from France, he had mostly Americans working on [the project] and I'd worked with most of them before on previous jobs," Bulman said. "So when they needed electronics help, they'd call me up and ask if I was available. It was all word of mouth and then, once it worked for him, then he phones back and asks, 'are you available for this one?'" Getting equipment to function reliably at enormous depths and pressures presents daunting engineering challenges. Bulman was hired to work on the communications systems between the Deepsea Challenger, the submarine Cameron would pilot to the bottom of the trench, and the surface support craft. Bulman worked remotely on the project for months before he joined the team full-time in Australia in November as a subcontractor to Cameron's California-based company, Light Storm Entertainment.

The communication system Bulman worked on was completely new. "Nobody had a system that would work 11 kilometres deep," Bulman said. "They didn't exist." Much of the challenge in rigging the communications was in making it work for the application. Most long distance underwater communication is done with sound, not radio transmissions. At a depth of 11,000 metres, Cameron would pilot a submarine as far below the surface of the Pacific Ocean as most airliners fly above it, but at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the pressure on the sub's hull is 16,500 psi. Even water and oil, both considered incompressible, compress under such extreme conditions. The Deepsea Challenger's communication system relayed data about water pressure to calculate depth, oxygen and carbon dioxide percentages of the air inside the sub's hull, temperature, battery voltage and compass headings. That information was transmitted in low-frequency data packages that to the human ear sound something like the old telephone modems once used to connect to the Internet. The system also handled verbal communication and text messaging.

Sound travels fast under water, but signals quickly become lost among noise sources in the ocean – such as rain, wind, waves, sea life, geological disturbances and, especially, noise from mechanical systems aboard the support ship – so any sound transmitted over long distances has to be loud. As if getting anything to work reliably under crushing pressures isn't enough of a challenge, Bulman had to tease the sub's signals out from the background din and keep the data transmissions isolated from the voice communications so they wouldn't deafen Cameron, who was listening intently over headphones. "We had two modems," Bulman said. "One was primarily voice comms and the other was sending data. Every time the data was blasted, it would blast him too because he was listening over a real high gain receiver. It's equivalent to somebody speaking from a mountain top with a megaphone and having someone 30 kilometres away listening for that sound." Bulman built the bandpass filters that isolated data communications from voice transmissions and limited the discomfort for Cameron. Once built, those filters had to be proofed against the extreme pressure of the ocean. "Most of the electronics that were external, we just tried to oil fill to be pressure tolerant," Bulman said.

"We had a 30,000 psi test chamber in Australia, so we cycled a lot of things to death, to learn where they'd fail." If a component, such as a battery, failed after 50 pressure cycles, but only 25 dives were scheduled, engineers planned for that equipment attrition by bringing along enough spares. Much of the equipment was shaken out during test dives off Papua New Guinea, an area Bulman said had not been dived before. "That was incredible," he said. "The scenery underwater was unbelievable. Within four kilometres offshore you'd be in 8,000 metres of water. We got some really good footage off of New Guinea." Video footage from test dives and the dives made in the Mariana Trench could contain valuable scientific information, but no one will know for sure until the footage, sea floor samples and other data gathered is reviewed and catalogued. The footage and data is also being compiled into a documentary about the expedition. One reason the Mariana Trench has not been visited by manned expeditions in more than 50 years is because the world's militaries and oil companies perceive little if any military or monetary benefit from researching the area.

But scientist have dropped landers – glass spheres carrying cameras, LED lights, batteries and bait to attract wildlife – into the trench. Landers hover near the sea floor, tethered on weights for several hours before timers drop the weights and they return to the surface with their data. In lander video footage Bulman viewed, he could hear the glass sphere beginning to crush. "Wow, that's really eerie and it really plays on your mind if you're going to be getting into a sub," Bulman said. Even a small lander imploding under high pressure can set up a shock wave as devastating as a depth charge, so Cameron did not allow landers to accompany the DeepSea Challenger on his dives. Heavy weather compounded the technical challenges of the dives. The expedition was originally scheduled to take place in November and December when the weather off the Mariana Islands is good, but it was March when seas in the area are rough, before the team was ready to make the dives. Waves of three to five metres and 25 knot winds prevented dives, but when waves settled down to about one metre and winds died to 10 knots, the sub was launched.

When Cameron and the sub returned to the surface, the crew had to recover them regardless of the weather conditions. The grueling schedules and physical conditions of the dive were exhausting. "It was rough," Bulman said. "Lots of people were seasick." Cameron, known for being a demanding boss, managed two dives into the trench, the first at 4 a.m. March 26. Ten lander dives were also made, before the crew was worn out and parts attrition brought an end to the exhibition. "He pushed hard, but it wouldn't have happened if he had not pushed that hard," Bulamn said. Another expedition to the trench is planned, possibly within the next two years. After being gone for six months, Bulman says he has a big "honey-do" list to catch up with at home and he needs to spend time with his family. He wants to return to the Mariana Trench, but he'd like to do some exploration in the Arctic, diving with and filming wildlife. He also wants to film and survey shipwrecks in the Inside Passage around Vancouver Island. Bulman also has a short job coming up in mid-May, working with E.

James Dixon, professor of anthropology with the University of New Mexico, to look for signs of ancient civilizations of the coast of Alaska at depths of 90-metre, which was the level of the ocean approximately 10,000 years ago. "We'll go down and get video evidence and maybe some rock samples," Bulman said. - Deepsea Challenge sponsored by National Geographic and Rolex - To learn more about the DeepSea Challenge, please visit the expedition website at - The Marianas Trench, lies east the Marianas Islands in the south Pacific Ocean. Its deepest point, called the Challenger Deep, lies 11 km below the ocean surface - Don Walsh, who made the only other manned decent to the bottom of the Mariana Trench with Jacques Piccard in 1960, was an member of James Cameron's team aboard the expedition support craft - The Mermaid Sapphire was the main support ship for the expedition We encourage an open exchange of ideas on this story's topic, but we ask you to follow our guidelines for respecting community standards. Personal attacks, inappropriate language, and off-topic comments may be removed, and comment privileges revoked, per our Terms of Use .

Please see our FAQ if you have questions or concerns about using Facebook to comment. James Cameron on Earth's Deepest Spot: Desolate, Lunar-Like James Cameron on Earth's Deepest Spot: Desolate, Lunar-Like Trip to Challenger Deep felt as if he'd "gone to another planet." View Images Explorer-filmmaker James Cameron emerges from his sub after returning from Challenger Deep. Photograph by Mark Thiessen, National Geographic The Mariana Trench 's Challenger Deep—the deepest point on Earth—looks as bleak and barren as the moon, according to James Cameron , who successfully returned just hours ago from the first solo dive to the ocean abyss. Related Content ( Video: James Cameron Breaks Solo Dive Record. ) After a descent that took roughly two and a half hours, Cameron spent about three hours conducting the first manned scientific exploration of Challenger Deep. For his return trip, Cameron experienced a faster-than-expected, roughly 70-minute ascent, which he described as a "heckuva ride." Bobbing in the open ocean, his custom-designed sub, the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER, was spotted by helicopter and plucked from the Pacific by a research ship's crane.

The expedition was designed so that Cameron could spend up to six hours collecting samples and video at the bottom of the trench. But his mission was cut short due in part to a hydraulic fluid leak that coated the window of the sub's "pilot sphere," obscuring his view. "I lost hydraulics toward the latter part of dive, and I was unable to use the manipulator arm," Cameron said this morning during a post-dive press conference held aboard the Octopus, a yacht owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen , a longtime Cameron friend. (Allen was on the scene for the historic dive and posted live updates of the event on Twitter from aboard his yacht, which provided backup support for the mission.) Considering the daunting task of sending humans into the deep, such technical glitches are to be expected, Cameron emphasized: "It's a prototype vehicle, so it's gonna take time to iron out the bugs.

"The important thing is that we have a vehicle that's a robust platform—it gets us there safely, the lights work, the cameras work, and hopefully next time the hydraulics will work." And although he wasn't able to capture as many samples on this first dive as science teams might have been hoping for, "that just means I gotta go back and get some more," said Cameron, also a National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence . In fact, he and sub co-designer Ron Allum, managing director of the Australia-based Acheron Project research and design company, already have more dives planned in the coming weeks as part of the DEEPSEA CHALLENGE project , a partnership with the National Geographic Society and Rolex. (The Society owns National Geographic News.) "I see this as the beginning ... of opening up this frontier to science and really understanding these deep places," Cameron said. Little Life Found in Challenger Deep Aboard the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER, Cameron had a host of tools at his disposal, including a sediment sampler, a robotic claw, and temperature, salinity, and pressure gauges.

(See pictures of Cameron's sub .) The sub is also outfitted with multiple 3-D cameras and an 8-foot (2.5-meter) tower of LEDs. But in part due to the hydraulics leak and a host of lost thrusters, Cameron wasn't able to capture any biological samples, and an attempted sediment core sample was only partially retrieved. "I didn't see big jellyfish and big anemones like I saw [during test dives] at the New Britain Trench," off Papua New Guinea , Cameron said. (See "Giant 'Amoebas' Found in Deepest Place on Earth." ) At Challenger Deep "I landed on a very soft, almost gelatinous flat plain. Once I got my bearings, I drove across it for quite a distance ... and finally worked my way up the slope." The whole time, Cameron said, he didn't see any fish, or any living creatures more than an inch (2.5 centimeters) long: "The only free swimmers I saw were small amphipods"—shrimplike bottom-feeders that appear to be common across most marine environments.

"When I was in the New Britain Trench a couple weeks ago, the bottom was covered in the tracks of small animals, which gave it an eggshell appearance," he added. "But when I came to Challenger Deep, the bottom was completely featureless. I had this idea that life would adapt to the deep ... but I don't think we're seeing that." Still, the science team is hopeful that the small sample Cameron took of the trench's sediments, along with the sub's constantly whirring cameras, will provide some new insight into the remote underwater realm. ( Video: How sound revealed that Challenger Deep is the deepest spot in the ocean. ) "Jim recovered about 50 milliliters of muddy seawater that I gleefully processed for culturing and for genomic studies," Doug Bartlett , chief scientist for the DEEPSEA CHALLENGE project, said in an email to National Geographic News. "Can't wait to see what new critters (Bacteria, Archaea, and fungi) that we discover," said Bartlett, a marine biologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California.

The mud could contain exotic species of microbial life that may not only advance our understanding of the deep ocean but also help in the search for extraterrestrial life. For instance, scientists think Jupiter's moon Europa could harbor a global ocean beneath its thick shell of ice—an ocean that, like Challenger Deep, would be lightless, near freezing, and home to areas of intense pressure. (See "Could Jupiter Moon Harbor Fish-Size Life?" ) Deep Dive was Like a Trip to Another Planet Until Cameron's dive, the only manned Challenger Deep expedition was a mission that took place in 1960, when retired U.S. Navy Capt. Don Walsh and late Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard descended in the Navy submersible Trieste. Climbing into the cockpit of DEEPSEA CHALLENGER, Cameron said he was "intimately aware of the design of the vehicle ... and I felt we'd done the engineering right. "When the hatch closed, I felt the vehicle around me was able to withstand the pressure. There may be butterflies in your stomach beforehand, but once you're inside the sub, the excitement of going someplace [few have] been before takes over ...

the adrenaline takes over, and the fear really goes away." Cameron also had to overcome the sheer physical experience of the dive—the 57-year-old explorer was crammed into the sub's 43-inch-wide (109-centimeter-wide) pilot sphere, which itself was loaded up with navigation controls, cameras, and other electronics. "I wind up packed in like a Mercury astronaut, if you will," Cameron said. ( Video: how the sub sphere protects Cameron. ) "When you first close the hatch, all these electronics are dumping heat into the sphere." Since the Mariana Trench lies near the Equator, surface temperatures are high, and the inside of the sub's cockpit "gets very hot right away—it's like a sauna inside. "But as you start descending, the sub goes very fast. I'm screaming down, and in just a few minutes I'm in water that's 36 degrees Fahrenheit [2.2 degrees Celsius]. "All of sudden my feet are freezing, the back of my head is freezing, but the middle part of my body is still warm," he said.

Then, "literally within a minute or two I'm out of sunlight, and you're in total darkness for most of this dive, so the sub gets very cold, and you have to put on warm clothing. ... The walls have condensation all over them and I'm constantly getting dripped on by cold water." Despite the physical challenges, Cameron seemed in awe of what he'd experienced in the remote ocean depths. "This is a vast frontier down there that's going to take us a while to understand," he said. "The impression to me was it's very lunar, very isolated. I felt as if, in the space of one day, I'd gone to another planet and come back." Hoping for Gifts From the Ocean According to biological oceanographer Lisa Levin, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California, the DEEPSEA CHALLENGE program's potential for generating public interest in deep-ocean science is just as important as anything Cameron might have discovered. "I consider Cameron to be doing for the trenches what Jacques Cousteau did for the ocean many decades ago," Levin, who's part of the team but didn't participate in the seagoing expedition, said in a previous interview with National Geographic News.

At a time of fast-shrinking funds for undersea research, Levin said, "what scientists need is the public support to be able to continue exploration and research of the deep ocean." DEEPSEA CHALLENGE – National Geographic Explorer James Cameron’s Expedition Read more The Technology As with spaceships, deep-sea submersibles must be engineered to accommodate innumerable challenges, including dramatic changes in pressure and temperature and a total absence of sunlight. In the process of meeting these challenges, the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER submersible engineering team has made historic breakthroughs in materials science, incorporated unique approaches to structural engineering, and innovated new ways of imaging through an ultrasmall stereoscopic camera capable of withstanding the pressure at full ocean depth. After reaching the seafloor, the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER was able to explore the bottom for several hours—dramatically longer than the 20 minutes U.S. Navy Lt. Don Walsh and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard were able to spend there during their expedition in the bathyscaphe Trieste on January 23, 1960. Read more The Science The DEEPSEA CHALLENGER is designed as a science platform.

It has the ability to collect rock and sediment samples, as well as biology samples, and is equipped with powerful lights and a suite of wide-field and macro 3-D high-definition cameras for observing fauna alive in their natural habitat and providing context images for all samples taken. Scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the University of Hawai'i, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory participated in the mission on the ship, as did other scientists on shore. Their research interests include marine biology and microbiology, astrobiology, and marine geology and geophysics. James Cameron hits the world's floor -- and returns - CNET James Cameron hits the world's floor -- and returns James Cameron hits the world's floor -- and returns The director pilots a submersible to the ocean's deepest point in the Mariana Trench, becoming the first person to make the nearly 7-mile dive alone. Naturally, a 3D film is in the works. Up Next Governments suck at social media, but you deserve some blame Filmmaker James Cameron in his submersible, the Deepsea ChallengerPhoto by National Geographic Give James Cameron this much: He's unafraid to follow his passions where they lead him.

Even if that place is seven miles below the surface of the ocean. Yesterday Cameron became the first person to make a solo dive to the ocean's deepest point -- a portion of the Pacific Ocean's Mariana Trench known as "Challenge Deep." Cameron piloted a "vertical torpedo" of a submersible he dubbed "Deepsea Challenger" to the bottom of the trench, 35,756 feet down, then spent three hours filming and taking samples before safely returning to the surface. No one has made that dive for 52 years. In 1960, two men piloted the Swiss-designed bathyscaphe "Trieste" to the bottom of Challenge Deep. Navy Lt. Don Walsh and the late Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard carried few instruments with them, and in fact saw little beyond the mud stirred up by their arrival at the bottom. Related stories Inside the world's most advanced submarine Cameron's submersible, by contrast, was loaded for bear -- just as you'd expect from a Hollywood director responsible both for major Hollywood epics such as "Avatar" and much more intimate documentaries about undersea exploration.

The Deepsea Challenger carried multiple 3D cameras, an eight-foot LED tower for illumination, a sediment sampler, a robotic claw, and a "slurp gun" for capturing small undersea creatures via suction. The voyage was a joint scientific venture involving Cameron, the National Geographic Society and Rolex. We'll have more coverage later on Monday. In the meantime, here are the first images from Cameron's expedition, followed by the text of National Geographic's statement on the event. 7 At Mariana Trench, James Cameron is king of the deep (photos) JAMES CAMERON MAKES FIRST EVER SUCCESSFUL SOLO DIVE TO MARIANA TRENCH Filmmaker and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Successfully Completes Dive To Ocean's Deepest Point during DEEPSEA CHALLENGE Expedition WASHINGTON (March 26, 2012)--Filmmaker and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence James Cameron descended 35,756 feet (6.77 miles/10.89 km) to reach the "Challenger Deep," the ocean's deepest point located in the Mariana Trench, in his specially designed submersible DEEPSEA CHALLENGER.

The attempt was part of DEEPSEA CHALLENGE, a joint scientific expedition by Cameron, National Geographic and Rolex to conduct deep-ocean research and exploration. Cameron is the only individual ever to complete the dive in a solo vehicle and the first person since 1960 to reach the very bottom of the world in a manned submersible. During the dive, he conducted the first manned scientific exploration of the "Challenger Deep." The submersible was launched into the Pacific Ocean some 200 miles (322 km) southwest of Guam on Monday, March 26, at 5:15 a.m., local Guam time (Sunday, March 25, at 3:15 p.m., Eastern Time). The voyage down to the "Challenger Deep" took two hours and 36 minutes. Cameron resurfaced at 12 noon local Guam time on Monday, March 26 (10 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday, March 25).

The submersible -- the result of a more-than-seven-year engineering effort -- stayed on the bottom for about three hours as Cameron collected samples for research in marine biology, microbiology, astrobiology, marine geology and geophysics. Cameron also captured still photographs and moving images to visually document the Mariana Trench. "This journey is the culmination of more than seven years of planning for me and the amazing DEEPSEA CHALLENGE expedition team," said Cameron. "Most importantly, though, is the significance of pushing the boundaries of where humans can go, what they can see and how they can interpret it. Without the support of National Geographic and Rolex, and their unwavering belief that we could successfully make it to the deepest point in the ocean -- and back -- this would not have happened." "We join the rest of the world in celebrating the exhilarating achievement of Jim Cameron and the DEEPSEA CHALLENGE expedition team," said Terry Garcia, National Geographic's executive vice president of Mission Programs. "In 2012 we are still exploring largely unknown places -- as National Geographic has been doing for nearly 125 years.

I'm delighted to say that the golden age of exploration and discovery continues." Details on the expedition can be found at on Twitter by following @DeepChallenge or using #deepseachallenge; or on Facebook at The "Challenger Deep" has only been reached once before in a manned descent, on Jan. 23, 1960, by then U.S. Navy Lt. Don Walsh -- who is a consultant on the DEEPSEA CHALLENGE expedition and was aboard the expedition ship Mermaid Sapphire during Cameron's successful attempt -- and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard in the bathyscaphe Trieste. Walsh and Piccard spent about 20 minutes on the ocean floor before returning to the surface. With breakthroughs in materials and science, unique approaches to structural engineering and new ways of imaging through an ultra-small, full ocean depth-rated stereoscopic camera, Cameron was able to launch the DEEPSEA CHALLENGE expedition, which he hopes will shed light on other virtually unknown deep-water habitats, such as the New Britain Trench and the Sirena Deep.

Cameron's CAMERON | PACE Group, which supplies 3-D technologies /and production support services, provided the capability to document today's historic dive in high-resolution 3-D. In 1960, an experimental Rolex Deep Sea Special watch was strapped to the hull of the Trieste and emerged in perfect working order after withstanding the huge pressure exerted nearly 7 miles (nearly 11 km) below the surface. The DEEPSEA CHALLENGER submersible today carried a new, experimental wristwatch, the Rolex Deepsea Challenge, attached to the manipulator arm, renewing the pioneering engineering challenge the Swiss watchmaker took up 52 years ago. "Rolex warmly congratulates James Cameron and the DEEPSEA CHALLENGE expedition team for their successful dive into history, in the vanguard of a new and exciting era of marine exploration," said Gian Riccardo Marini, Chief Executive Officer of Rolex SA. "The achievement is a product of their passion, courage, skill and the highest standards of excellence and innovation in advancing human knowledge.

We are delighted to be part of DEEPSEA CHALLENGE, perpetuating half a century of tradition in deep-sea diving." Two of Cameron's passions -- filmmaking and diving -- blend in his feature and documentary films. While working on "Titanic," he took 12 submersible dives to the famed shipwreck two-and-a-half miles down in the North Atlantic. The technical success of that expedition led Cameron to form Earthship Productions, which develops films about ocean exploration and conservation. Since then he has led six expeditions, authored a forensic study of the Bismarck wreck site and done extensive 3-D imaging of deep hydrothermal vent sites along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the East Pacific Rise and the Sea of Cortez. Cameron has made more than 70 deep submersible dives, including a total of 33 to Titanic. Fifty-one of these dives were in Russian Mir submersibles to depths of up to 3.03 miles (4.87 km).

The DEEPSEA CHALLENGE expedition is being chronicled for a 3-D feature film for theatrical release on the intensive technological and scientific efforts behind this historic dive -- which will subsequently be broadcast on the National Geographic Channel -- and is being documented for National Geographic magazine. Cameron also will collaborate with National Geographic to create broad-based educational outreach materials. Additional major funding for the 3-D feature film, education and digital outreach has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which supports original research and public understanding of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, is the DEEPSEA CHALLENGE's primary science collaborator. For nearly a decade, Scripps has been involved with Cameron in developing new ways to explore and study the deepest parts of the oceans. With its decades-long history of deep-sea exploration, Scripps is recognized as a world leader in investigating the science of the deep ocean, from exploring the deep's geological features to researching its exotic marine life inhabitants. The expedition also is collaborating with the University of Hawaii, Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of Guam. Permits for the "Challenger Deep" research were secured from the Federated States of Micronesia.

The majority of the Mariana Trench is now a U.S. protected zone under a 2009 proclamation by President George W. Bush that established the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument and gave management responsibility to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in consultation with the National Marine Fisheries Service. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued permits for dives in the U.S. areas of the trench.

Question: In 1960 which Belgian-born oceanographer and engineer made the first manned expedition to the Mariana Trench, the deepest place in the ocean?
Answer: Jacques Piccard