Mariana Trench: James Cameron completes record-breaking mission | Film | The Guardian James Cameron Mariana Trench: James Cameron completes record-breaking mission Titanic director becomes first person to perform solo voyage to floor of seven-mile-deep canyon – the oceans' deepest point Monday 26 March 2012 07.16 EDT First published on Monday 26 March 2012 07.16 EDT Close This article is 4 years old The film director James Cameron was today described as a real-life Avatar after he returned safely from a one-man mission to the Mariana Trench , the deepest point of Earth's oceans. Cameron emerged from his 12-tonne, lime green submarine, Deepsea Challenger, early this morning after travelling nearly seven miles down to the desert-like bottom of the trench. His ship was equipped with 3D cameras to shoot footage for a planned documentary, using lighting from a spectacular eight-foot tower of LEDs. The director of Titanic and Avatar , who has maintained a long-term interest in the secrets of the oceans' depths, was able to direct and film the action from within the sub. "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 2D images," Cameron told National Geographic News ahead of the dive. As he reached the bottom of the trench, which is about 200 miles south-west of the Pacific island of Guam, Cameron sent out a tweet reading: "Just arrived at the ocean's deepest pt. Hitting bottom never felt so good. Can't wait to share what I'm seeing w/ you" . James Cameron's Deepsea Challenger submersible. Photograph: Reuters The Mariana is 120 times larger than the Grand Canyon and more than a mile deeper than Mount Everest is tall. The dive was the first into the depths of the trench since Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard and US navy captain Don Walsh spent 20 minutes there in 1960. Unlike Cameron, they were unable to see – let alone film – very much as their submarine kicked up too much mud from the ocean floor. Expedition doctor Joe MacInnis said Cameron's journey had been "the ultimate test of a man and his machine", describing his friend as a real-life "avatar". He said: "He's down there on behalf of everybody else on this planet.

There are seven billion people who can't go, and he can. And he's aware of that." The expedition was organised and funded by Cameron himself, an oceanography enthusiast since childhood, along with the National Geographic Society, Rolex and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. The director, 57, has undertaken 72 deep-sea submersible dives, 33 of which were to the wreckage of the Titanic, the subject of his 1997 hit film. He expects the trip to the Mariana Trench to be the first of many. Expedition member Patricia Fryer told National Geographic News the Deepsea Challenger's journey to the depths was far more useful scientifically than cheaper unmanned missions. "The critical thing is to be able to take the human mind down into that environment," said the marine geologist. "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 [remotely operated vehicle]." The Titanic director had to develop a special camera to withstand the 11km descent into the Pacific Ocean, writes Andrew Pulver Published: 29 Mar 2012 Film-maker describes the Mariana trench as 'very lunar' after completing a dive only ever done by two others Published: 26 Mar 2012 Film-maker and explorer hands one-man craft that plunged him to Pacific Ocean's deepest point to oceanographic institute Published: 26 Mar 2013 Footage has been released from the film director's voyage to the Mariana Trench, the deepest point of the Earth's oceans Published: 27 Mar 2012 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. Mariana Trench first-ever look: Cameron releases video from 7-mile deep Abyss (VIDEO) — RT News Tags Celebrity , SciTech , Thrills&Spills , Travel , Vehicles , Oceania ­“My feeling was one of complete isolation from all of humanity,” he said after returning from the Pacific Ocean’s deepest point, where he traveled alone in a specially designed submarine. The acclaimed film producer and director, who has created a number of astonishing worlds for millions of viewers all over the world, was amazed by what he saw in the Mariana Trench, even though the view was not nearly as picturesque as his movie-realities.

“There had to be a moment where I just stopped, and took it in, and said, ‘This is where I am; I’m at the bottom of the ocean, the deepest place on Earth. What does that mean?’” Cameron said after spending three hours at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, nearly seven miles below the surface. “I just sat there looking out the window, looking at this barren, desolate lunar plain, appreciating it,” Cameron confessed. Perhaps the only disappointment for the film director was that he did not see any strange deepwater creatures. All those he did encounter were small, but voracious shrimp-like critters not bigger than an inch (2.5 centimeters) in length. Cameron says next time he’ll bring “bait” – like chicken. There was also one technical malfunction. Just as Cameron was about to collect his first samples of rocks and critters, a leak in the hydraulic fluid sprayed into the water, rendering it impossible to bring anything back. ­Deepsea Challenger too small for Cameron ­Cameron’s decent to the depth of 35,576 feet (10,843 meters) took two hours and 36 minutes.

He spent around three hours exploring and filming the Challenger Deep, the deepest point of the Mariana Trench. His ascent was faster than expected, says National Geographic, a cosponsor of the expedition, and took only 70 minutes. Conditions aboard the 12-ton, lime-green sub called Deepsea Challenger were not exactly comfortable. The vehicle was somewhat cramped, barely fitting Cameron’s tall 6’2 frame, and not giving him enough room to stretch out. When the filmmaker had just gotten into the sub, he said it felt like a sauna, as the temperature outside topped 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius). But when he dove into the deep, the temperatures outside the sub dropped to 36 degrees Fahrenheit (2.2 Celsius). The pressure at the extreme depth was comparable to three SUVs resting on a toe. “It’s a very weird environment,” Cameron said. “I can’t say it’s very comfortable. And you can’t stretch out.” Film director the first to reach Challenger Deep on his own James Cameron is a world-famous director, most famous for blockbusters such as The Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, True Lies, Titanic and Avatar.

Cameron is also an explorer and has participated in a number of deep sea dives, including 33 plunges to visit the underwater grave of Titanic, which sank in 1912. Cameron became the first person to reach the Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench on his own, and the third person to do so overall. In 1960 oceanographers Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard visited Challenger Deep together aboard the Bathyscaphe Triest. Back then, they observed a number of small sole and flounder and said the floor of the Challenger Deep consisted of a “diatomaceous ooze.” However, the pair spent just twenty minutes at that depth, much shorter than the three hours spent by Cameron. Their descent and ascent were also much longer – totaling over eight hours. Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group and a diving enthusiast himself, called Cameron’s plunge “a fantastic achievement.” Branson is working on his own one-man sub and says he hopes to join Cameron in a tandem dive of solo subs. For now, Branson is planning on diving to the deepest part of the Atlantic – the Puerto Rico trench.

Cameron launched the Deepsea Challenge Expedition, sponsored by National Geographic Magazine and Rolex, in 2012. He has made a number of dives in his Deepsea Challenger sub, most notably to the bottom of the 26,791 foot (8,221 meter) deep New Britain Trench, located between Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands in the Sea of Solomon. He said the mission was all about exploration, science and discovery. “I see this as the beginning,” Cameron said. “It’s not a one-time deal and then moving on. This is the beginning of opening up this new frontier.” Diving Back To The Bottom Of The Mariana Trench : NPR Diving Back To The Bottom Of The Mariana Trench Embed Embed Diving Back To The Bottom Of The Mariana Trench Diving Back To The Bottom Of The Mariana Trench Embed Embed Heard on All Things Considered Robert Siegel talks to retired Navy Captain Don Walsh about the attempt by movie director James Cameron to take a submersible capsule to the bottom of the Mariana Trench — the deepest spot on Earth.

Walsh says the National Geographic and James Cameron expedition will be a combination of science and adventure, because Cameron is a storyteller and dedicated amateur explorer. Walsh made a 1960 dive to the same trench. MELISSA BLOCK, HOST: From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block. ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: And I'm Robert Siegel. The man who directed the films "Titanic" and "Avatar" had a real-life adventure this week. James Cameron rode a one-man submarine to a deep underwater trench in the Pacific Ocean, breaking the world solo dive record by a mile. And that is only a warm-up for James Cameron. Next, he has his sights on the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest one in the world. That's a place that a Swiss oceanographer and a U.S. Navy lieutenant reached in 1960. Cameron says he'll stay down there - again alone - for six hours filming. Well, on the line with us now from his home in Oregon is that Navy lieutenant who made the dive in 1960. Don Walsh is now a retired Navy captain.

Welcome to the program, Don. CAPTAIN DON WALSH: Thank you, Robert. SIEGEL: First, you know what kind of vehicle James Cameron is taking down there. How different is it from what you took down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench? WALSH: Without being too precious, I'd say if you ask Orville Wright what was the difference between his airplane and a 747, you'd get the same look of puzzlement... (SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER) WALSH: ...for our inability to even explain it because it's a wholly different machine. The advancements in material science, electronics, all of these things have contributed to a really super-efficient vehicle. I was out to see it in Sydney, Australia. I saw it in a shop for the first time, and it's mind-blowing. SIEGEL: Well, the vehicle is different, but the Mariana Trench, I assume, is the same. WALSH: Yup. SIEGEL: What is James Cameron likely to see down there? What does it look like down there? WALSH: Well, of course, after you go a few hundred feet, it's pitch-black.

So what you're treated to is kind of a light show of all the bioiluminscent critters that live in the deepest parts of the ocean. And there's an interesting variety of things down there. One of the things that's contentious is we reported we saw a flatfish when we - just before we landed. That's something like a sole or a small halibut. And that was quite a finding because that's a marine vertebrate, not an invertebrate, and it's not suspected they might live that deep in the sea. Many say that's not what we saw. But we're kind of hoping that with Jim spending six hours down there, that he can vindicate us. SIEGEL: Where is the line here, in what James Cameron is about to do, between ocean science and a great adventure? WALSH: Well, actually, Robert, some of each because Jim is a consummate storyteller. We know that's a given with his successes in movies. He loves to make documentaries. And the report I got from him after his recent dive to 8,000 meters was very, very interesting and the scientific observations he made and the kind of data he took.

So I'm looking for both adventure and solid science to come out of his deepest dive. SIEGEL: On that dive, he describes the surface down below that he said it's as flat as a billiard table. WALSH: Yeah. SIEGEL: It's like - and a beach - it's an underground beach in the seafloor. WALSH: Yeah. Well, we talk about these trenches, but actually they're not. I mean, we see them in the books, the magazines because they're very wide compared to the depth if you were to do in real scale. So they have to exaggerate the vertical scale to get it on a page of a book, and people tend to think of things like the Grand Canyon. Actually, the bottom of the Challenger Deep is about 7 miles long and a mile wide, something in that order. And the slopes on each side are very, very gentle. I mean, you're not looking at sort of vertical faces. That's, you know, that's a sort of a fictional thing to show people - give them an idea, but it's an erroneous idea when you try to put it on a page in a book or a magazine.

SIEGEL: Don, there have been dives with robots taking images, and I assume they could sample soil as well. Scientifically, can the robots with - they can't tell as good a story when they come back, but can we find out just as much by sending them down there? WALSH: That's a good point. Why man? I once asked Roger Revelle, who was arguably the high priest of postwar oceanography in the United States, why man? And he didn't hesitate. He looked at me. He said because you can't surprise an instrument because - well, the robots really will do the majority of the work in the deep trenches. We still are going to have to have man, the intervention, and - because the trained mind and the trained eye at the worksite is very, very important. And so it's going to be a mix of these tools. And I think that we will see, I hope now, the beginning of more man visits to the deepest parts of the ocean.

SIEGEL: Well, Don Walsh, I just want to observe before you go that while James Cameron is, as you say, a great storyteller, film director, in 1960 when you went 7 miles under the sea, to the Mariana Trench, you were a pretty good storyteller. You wrote the cover story in LIFE magazine about it. WALSH: Well, that was my first big hit, and I've never duplicated it since. As you remember, getting a cover story in LIFE magazine was a big thing for a writer. SIEGEL: Not a bad start in journalism, I would say. WALSH: Right. SIEGEL: Well, Don Walsh, good luck and thanks for talking with us. WALSH: Thank you, Robert. SIEGEL: Retired U.S. Navy Captain Don Walsh made the trip to the bottom of the Mariana Trench back in 1960, and that's a feat that will be attempted soon by movie director James Cameron. Copyright © 2012 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc. , an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. James Cameron’s Submarine Trip to Challenger Deep - The New York Times The New York Times Science |Filmmaker in Submarine Voyages to Bottom of Sea Search Correction Appended Photo James Cameron emerged from a submersible after his solo dive to the Marianas Trench in the western Pacific on Monday. Credit Mark Thiessen/National Geographic James Cameron , the filmmaker whose credits include “Avatar” and “Titanic,” plunged on Sunday in a minisubmarine of his own design to the bottom of the planet’s deepest recess, sinking through the dark waters of the western Pacific to a depth of nearly seven miles. The National Geographic Society , which is helping sponsor the expedition, the first in 52 years to descend so deep, said he reached the bottom at 5:52 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. Mr.

Cameron returned to the surface Sunday evening, according to Stephanie Montgomery of the National Geographic Society, The Associated Press reported. His return was a “faster-than-expected 70-minute ascent,” according to National Geographic. After seven years of planning — done with a team in Australia and largely in secret — Mr. Cameron strode up to his sleek 24-foot-long craft, folded his frame into a steel personal capsule just 43 inches wide and plummeted through miles of icy darkness into a trough known as the Challenger Deep. Rough seas had delayed his dive about two weeks. “Just arrived at the ocean’s deepest pt,” Mr. Cameron said in a Twitter message earlier on Sunday. “Hitting bottom never felt so good. Can’t wait to share what I’m seeing w/ you.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story Mr. Cameron’s vehicle is unique among submersibles, its vertical axis meant to speed its descent and maximize time on the bottom. His goal is to explore the dark seabed for six hours, taking pictures and extracting samples of the fauna, before returning to sunny realms. Mr.

Cameron, 57, practiced yoga to train for what is likely to be about nine hours of keeping his knees bent and body largely immobile. Five people have died in submersible accidents over the decades, and Mr. Cameron said the risks he faced were acceptable given the testing that his craft’s parts have undergone and its backup gear for such critical systems as electrical power and life support. His dive signals the rising importance of entrepreneurs in the global race to advance science and technology. No government can send people so deep. His team includes scientists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography , the University of Hawaii , and other organizations. Mr. Cameron’s plunge comes a quarter-century after he began work on “The Abyss” (1989), the first of his movies to display a fascination with the deep sea. The Challenger Deep, which extends 6.8 miles below the ocean’s surface, is the lowest point of the Mariana Trench, itself the deepest of the many seabed recesses that crisscross the globe. The only other time humans have gone there was in 1960, when the United States Navy sent down two men who stayed 20 minutes.

Their craft’s landing stirred up so much ooze that the divers could see little during their stay on the bottom, and they took no pictures. By contrast, Mr. Cameron has packed his craft with cameras and recording devices and plans to make at least two movies: a 3-D production for wide-screen theaters, and a National Geographic TV special. His aim is to film the realm’s unfamiliar life. Advising him on his Pacific expedition is Don Walsh, a retired Navy officer who in 1960 dived into the Challenger Deep and the record books. “I feel so fortunate,” Dr. Walsh said in an e-mail. “Dudes my age are mostly sitting in rockers passing around snapshots of grandkids and great-grandkids.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story Early this month, after Mr. Cameron took his submarine on a test plunge to a depth of five miles, he immediately e-mailed Dr. Walsh to describe the experience and his craft’s performance. “Overall the vehicle performed like a champ,” Mr. Cameron said.

“Plenty of power, and even though I lost one thruster, I still had 11 left, so the massive-redundancy approach worked.” Time will tell how his craft handles the greater stresses of the Challenger Deep, where the waters overhead press down with a pressure of more than eight tons per square inch. In an interview, Mr. Cameron noted that Pennsylvania State University had used a pressure chamber to test the strength of the capsule. “You’re going into one of the most unforgiving places on earth,” he said. “It’s not like you can call up AAA to come get you.” Correction: March 26, 2012 A picture credit with an earlier version of this article misstated the association of the photographer, Mark Thiessen. He photographed James Cameron for National Geographic, not for Agence France-Presse — Getty Images. A version of this article appears in print on March 26, 2012, on Page A9 of the New York edition with the headline: Film Director in Submarine Voyages to Bottom of Sea.

Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe James Cameron Now at Ocean's Deepest Point James Cameron Now at Ocean's Deepest Point Explorer-filmmaker reaches Mariana Trench on deepest ever solo sub dive. View Images A shipboard crane lowers Cameron's sub into the Pacific around 2 a.m. Monday, local time. Photograph by Mark Thiessen, National Geographic At 5:52 p.m. ET Sunday (7:52 a.m. Monday, local time), James Cameron arrived at the Mariana Trench 's Challenger Deep, members of the National Geographic expedition have confirmed. His depth on arrival: 35,756 feet (10,898 meters)—a figure unattainable anywhere else in the ocean . Reaching bottom after a 2-hour-and-36-minute descent, the National Geographic explorer and filmmaker typed out welcome words for the cheering support crew waiting at the surface: "All systems OK." Folded into a sub cockpit as cramped as any Apollo capsule , the National Geographic explorer and filmmaker is now investigating a seascape more alien to humans than the moon.

Cameron is only the third person to reach this Pacific Ocean valley southwest of Guam (map) —and the only one to do so solo. Hovering in what he's called a vertical torpedo, Cameron is likely collecting data, specimens, and imagery unthinkable in 1960, when the only other explorers to reach Challenger Deep returned after seeing little more than the silt stirred up by their bathyscaphe . After as long as six hours in the trench, Cameron—best known for creating fictional worlds on film ( Avatar , Titanic , The Abyss )—is to jettison steel weights attached to the sub and shoot back to the surface. (See pictures of Cameron's sub .) Meanwhile, the expedition's scientific support team awaits his return aboard the research ships Mermaid Sapphire and Barakuda, 7 miles (11 kilometers) up. ( Video: how sound revealed that Challenger Deep is the deepest spot in the ocean. ) "We're now a band of brothers and sisters that have been through this for a while," marine biologist Doug Bartlett told National Geographic News from the ship before the dive.

"People have worked for months or years in a very intensive way to get to this point," said Bartlett, chief scientist for the DEEPSEA CHALLENGE program , a partnership with the National Geographic Society and Rolex. (The Society owns National Geographic News.) "I think people are ready," added Bartlett, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California. "They want to get there, and they want to see this happen." ( Video: Cameron Dive Is an Exploration First. )m Rendezvous at Challenger Deep Upon touchdown at Challenger Deep, Cameron's first target is a phone booth-like unmanned "lander" dropped into the trench hours before his dive. Using sonar, "I'm going to attempt to rendezvous with that vehicle so I can observe animals that are attracted to the chemical signature of its bait," Cameron told National Geographic News before the dive. He'll later follow a route designed to take him through as many environments as possible, surveying not only the sediment-covered seafloor but also cliffs of interest to expedition geologists.

"I'll be doing a bit of a longitudinal transect along the trench axis for a while, and then I'll turn 90 degrees and I'll go north and work myself up the wall," said Cameron, also a National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence . (Listen: James Cameron on becoming a National Geographic explorer .) Though battery power and vast distances limit his contact with his science team to text messaging and sporadic voice communication, Cameron seemed confident in his mission Friday. "I'm pretty well briefed on what I'll see," he said. ( Video: Cameron Dive First Attempt in Over 50 Years. ) Bullet to the Deep To get to this point, Cameron and his crew have spent seven years reimagining what a submersible can be. The result is the 24-foot-tall (7-meter-tall) DEEPSEA CHALLENGER. Engineered to sink upright and spinning, like a bullet fired straight into the Mariana Trench, the sub can descend about 500 feet (150 meters) a minute—"amazingly fast," in the words of Robert Stern, a marine geologist at the University of Texas at Dallas. Pre-expedition estimates put the Challenger Deep descent at about 90 minutes.

( Animation: Cameron's Mariana Trench dive compressed into one minute. ) By contrast, some current remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs, descend at about 40 meters (130 feet) a minute, added Stern, who isn't part of the expedition. Andy Bowen, project manager and principal developer of the Nereus , an ROV that explored Challenger Deep in 2009, called the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER "an extremely elegant solution to the challenge of diving a human-occupied submersible to such extreme depths." "It's been engineered to be very effective at getting from the surface to the seafloor in as quick a time as possible," said Bowen, of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who also isn't part of the current expedition. And that's just the idea, the DEEPSEA CHALLENGE team says: The faster Cameron gets there, the more time for science. (Read more about DEEPSEA CHALLENGE science .) Pursuing speed and science in tandem makes the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER test dives—and even the Mariana Trench mission—perhaps as unorthodox as the sub itself.

Typically "you conduct a sea trial for a vehicle, you pronounce it fit for service, and then you develop a science program around it," Cameron said before heading to the trench. "We collapsed that together into one expedition, because [we were] fairly confident the vehicle would work—and it is." Techno Torpedo Now, at the bottom of the trench, the sub's custom-designed foam filling and the pressure-resistant shape of the "pilot sphere"—are helping protect Cameron from the equivalent of 8 tons pressing down on every square inch (1,125 kilograms per square centimeter). ( Video: how sub sphere protects Cameron. ) Among the sub's tools are a sediment sampler, a mechanical claw, a "slurp gun" for sucking up small sea creatures for study at the surface, and temperature, salinity, and pressure gauges. While that might sound like a gearhead's paradise, Cameron knows he'll "have to be able to prioritize." "Is my manipulator working properly? Do I still have room in my sample drawer? And do I still have the ability to take a [sediment] core sample? ...

I only have [tools for] three sediment cores available on the vehicle, so I have to choose wisely when to use them." By contrast, the sub's multiple 3-D cameras will be whirring almost continually, and not just for the benefit of future audiences of planned documentaries. "There is scientific value in getting stereo images," Cameron said, "because ... you can determine the scale and distance of objects from stereo pairs that you can't from 2-D images." But, Scripps's Bartlett said, "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. It's unlike anything that you'll have seen from other subs or other remotely operated vehicles." Video: James Cameron's first footage from the deep - Telegraph Earth Video James Cameron's first footage from the deep James Cameron releases the first ever video footage of the bottom of the Mariana Trench – seven miles below the ocean's surface.

10:38AM BST 27 Mar 2012 The bottom of the Earth’s deepest ocean is like a desolate lunar landscape, film director James Cameron revealed after making the first solo dive seven miles below the surface. Mr Cameron became the first person to explore the Mariana Trench, which is larger than the Grand Canyon and as deep as Mount Everest is tall, alone. “It was very lunar, a very desolate place, very isolated,” he said. “My feeling was one of complete isolation from all of humanity. “It’s very different than what you imagine. You have to go through it, you have to really experience it. Related Content James Cameron deep sea dive: director behind two $1bn film hits - Telegraph Celebrity news James Cameron deep sea dive: director behind two $1bn film hits Until his record-breaking dive to the bottom of the ocean, director James Cameron was known for being behind two of the biggest box office Hollywood film hits of all time.

Image 1 of 5 James Cameron emerges from the Deepsea Challenger submersible after his successful solo dive to the Mariana Trench Photo: AP Photo/Mark Theissen Image 1 of 5 Suzy Amis and James Cameron, the film director, attend a conference on the Belo Monte dam in March last year Photo: REX Image 1 of 5 James Cameron and crew at work on 3-D documentary film Aliens of the Deep Photo: Buena Vista Sigourney Weaver (left) stars in the film Avatar, directed by James Cameron (right) Photo: AP Image 1 of 5 James Cameron with wife Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger on the set of Terminator 2 in 1991 Photo: Everett Collection / Rex Feature 1:00PM BST 26 Mar 2012 The 57 year-old became the first director to make a pair of films which grossed more than $1 billion at the worldwide box office. His 1997 film, Titanic, the romantic epic staring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, is estimated to have grossed more than $1.84 billion (£1.16 billion).

It broke all box office records and earned eleven Academy Awards. The artwork of Winslet featured in the film is reported to have been drawn by by Cameron, but due to him being left-handed was "flipped" so it could appear that DiCaprio was completing it. His second blockbuster production 12 years later, the 3D science fiction film Avatar, took a staggering £2.78 billion (£1.75 billion) at the box office. Avatar’s ground-breaking techniques and spectacular effects have revolutionised filmmaking and critics said it will “set standards for years to come”. Related Articles James Cameron leads submarine race 26 Feb 2012 Cameron’s two films are the two biggest selling films of all time. Just six other films are said to have grossed more than $1 billion and have all been directed by separate people. James Francis Cameron was born on August 16 1954, in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada, the eldest of five children of Phillip, an engineer and Shirley, a nurse. After growing up 590 miles south in Chippawa, Ontario, his family moved to California when he was in his late teens.

After majoring in physics at California State University, Cameron, who is known as Jim, worked several part-times jobs after dropping out, including truck driving to “support his screenwriting ambition”. In 1980 he secured his first “professional” film job as art director and miniature-set builder on Battle Beyond the Stars, a science fiction film directed by Roger Corman. According to IMdB , the internet movie database, the following year he made his directorial debut with Piranha Part Two: The Spawning. But it was the Terminator movie, the futuristic cyborg film he wrote and directed in 1984, which brought his critical acclaim and box office success. The film, starring a young Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton, is estimated to have grossed more than $371 million (£234 million). A string of science fiction hits followed over the coming years including Aliens, the 1986 sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1979 starring Sigourney Weaver, the ocean film The Abyss three years later and the Schwarzenegger sequel: Terminator 2: Judgement Day in 1991.

Before Titanic he again partnered with future California governor to make True Lies, a spy black comedy which also stared Jamie Lee Curtis and received an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects. Cameron, who has been married five times, is also an avid documentary maker while he is also planning two further Avatar films. He claims that the 1939 classic film The Wizard of Oz is his favourite movie Last year Cameron, a father of four, named Hollywood's top earner by Vanity Fair magazine, with estimated earnings for the previous year of more than $257 million. He is said to insist that any actor in his films must audition despite any pre-earned fame. He married his first wife Sharon Williams for six years before they divorced in 1984, He divorced his producer Gale Anne Hurd, who produced several of his films, 1989 before marrying Hurt Locker Director Kathryn Bigelow. They separated two years later and he then married his Hamilton, who played Sarah Connor in the Terminator franchise, in 1997 and separated two years later. Hamilton, who has a 19 year-old daughter Josephine with Cameron, has described her former as a workaholic.

In 2000, he married actress Suzy Amis, who appeared in Titanic, and the couple have nine year-old twins Claire and Quinn, and a stepson named Jasper from Amis' previous relationship. He currently lives in Malibu California, and also has a six year-old daughter, Elizabeth, with Amis.

James Cameron Mariana Trench dive: Film director visits ocean's deepest point | Daily Mail Online 'To hell and back': James Cameron is first solo diver to reach deepest point on Earth - but has to race back to surface after hydraulic failure seven miles down Director becomes first human to visit bottom of trench since January 1960 Cuts short dive after hydraulic failure Cameron descended 35,756 feet (6.77 miles/10.89km) to reach 'Challenger Deep' in the Mariana Trench Arnold Schwarzenegger, Richard Branson and Jessica Alba tweet support First of several competing missions to deepest point on Earth Mariana Trench is deeper than Mount Everest is high Returned to the surface in faster-than-expected 70 minutes Cameron filmed the journey for a feature-length documentary comments James Cameron has become the first solo diver to reach the bottom of Challenger Deep - the deepest point on Earth. But the Avatar director revealed he cut the mission three hours short after hydraulic fluid started leaking into his sub.

The 57-year-old described it as ‘a heck of a ride.’ The ‘Titanic’ and ‘Avatar’ director planned to spend seven hours under water but decided to head back up after spotting the leak. ‘I saw a lot of hydraulic oil come up in front of the port. The port was coated with it. I couldn’t pick anything up so I began to feel like it was a moment of diminishing returns to go on,’ he explained. ‘I lost a lot of thrusters. I lost the whole starboard side. That’s when I decided to come up. I couldn’t go any further - I was just spinning in a circle,’ he added. Scroll down to watch James Cameron surfacing from the challenge Success: James Cameron gives two thumbs-up as he emerges from the Deepsea Challenger today after his successful solo dive in the Mariana Trench Cameron's dive took him to a part of the ocean no one has visited for 50 years - and he is the only human being to have travelled and returned solo ‘It was bleak. It looked like the moon. I didn’t see a fish.

I didn’t see anything that looked alive to me, other than a few shrimplike amphipods in the water,’ he added. Cameron, who knows a little about alien worlds having made the movie Avatar, said when he got to this strange cold, dark place seven miles below the western Pacific Ocean that only two other men have been to, there was one thing he promised to himself - he wanted to drink in how unusual it is. RELATED ARTICLES Share this article Share He didn't do that when he first dove to the watery grave of the Titanic, and Apollo astronauts have said they never had time to savour where they were. ‘There had to be a moment where I just stopped, and took it in, and said, “This is where I am. I'm at the bottom of the ocean, the deepest place on Earth. What does that mean?”’ Cameron told reporters after spending three hours at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, nearly seven miles down. ‘I just sat there looking out the window, looking at this barren, desolate lunar plain, appreciating,’ Cameron said.

Water trip: Support vessels and divers circle Cameron's sub just after it surfaced Relief: The trip was fraught with danger but Cameron made it safely back with divers ready to aid the director if needed SIR RICHARD BRANSON TO DIVE TO ATLANTIC'S DEEPEST POINT Sir Richard Branson is determined to press ahead with his own undersea venture following the success of James Cameron’s journey to the deepest ocean point, it was revealed today. Today, a spokeswoman for Sir Richard said the Virgin Oceanic challenge would now begin with a dive to the Puerto Rico Trench - the deepest point of the Atlantic Ocean. As already announced, Sir Richard will pilot the submersible - slightly different in design to the Cameron craft - in the Puerto Rico Trench venture which will see the Virgin boss descend about five miles. The Virgin programme will then take in dives by human pilots to the bottom of the Arctic, Southern and Indian oceans. Sir Richard told the Press Association today: ‘I hope to do the Puerto Rico Trench dive in about three to four months if all goes well.’ He went on: ‘Our submersible is a little different from Jim’s (Cameron’s). It’s smaller and will be able to explore the bottom of the ocean.

‘It will take about five hours to complete the descent and then there will be about three hours of exploring time and then it will take another five hours to ascend.’ Sir Richard said he was practising on a smaller version of the sub. He went on: ‘I think this is the most exciting thing I have done. No-one has been down to the bottom of this trench before. I have been talking with Jim about working together. We might be able to do the Mariana Trench as part of our programme as well.’ He also realised how alone he was, with that much water above him. ‘It's really the sense of isolation, more than anything, realising how tiny you are down in this big vast black unknown and unexplored place,’ Cameron said. Cameron said he had hoped to see some strange deep sea monster like a creature that would excite the storyteller in him and seem like out of his movies, but he didn't. He didn't see tracks of animals on the sea floor as he did when he dove more than five miles deep weeks ago. All he saw were voracious shrimp-like critters that weren't bigger than an inch. But that was okay, he said, it was all about exploration, science and discovery.

He is the only person to dive there solo, using a sub he helped design. He is the first person to reach that depth - 35,576 feet - since it was initially explored in 1960. He spent more than three hours at the bottom, longer than the 20 minutes Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard spent in the only other visit 52 years ago. But it was less than the six hours he had hoped. He said he would return. ‘I see this as the beginning,’ Cameron said. ‘It's not a one-time deal and then moving on. This is the beginning of opening up this new frontier.’ ‘To me, the story is in the people in their quest and curiosity and their attempt to understand,’ Cameron said. He spent time filming the Mariana Trench, which is about 200 miles southwest of the Pacific island of Guam. The trip down to the deepest point took two hours and 36 minutes, starting Sunday afternoon U.S. East Coast time. His return aboard his 12-ton, lime-green sub called Deepsea Challenger was a ‘faster-than-expected 70-minute ascent,’ according to National Geographic, which sponsored the expedition.

Cameron is a National Geographic explorer-in-residence. The only thing that went wrong was the hydraulics on the system to collect rocks and critters to bring them back to land. Just as he was about to collect his first sample, a leak in the hydraulic fluid sprayed into the water and he couldn't bring anything back. When Cameron climbed into his sub, it was warm because it was near the equator and his cramped vehicle - his head hit one end and his feet the other - was toasty because of the heat given off by electronics. It felt ‘like a sauna’ with temperatures of more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit, he said. But as he plunged into the deep, the temperature outside the sub dropped to around 36 degrees, he said. The pressure on the sub was immense - comparable to three SUVs resting on a toe. The super-strong sub shrank three inches under that pressure, Cameron said. ‘It's a very weird environment,’ Cameron said. ‘I can't say it's very comfortable. And you can't stretch out.’ Cameron gave two thumbs up when he triumphantly resurfaced. His first words to the surface upon reaching the bottom were 'all systems OK', National Geographic said on its website.

As he hit the bottom, he tweeted: 'Just arrived at the ocean's deepest pt. Hitting bottom never felt so good. Can't wait to share what I'm seeing w/ you.' Arnie's tweet to James Cameron Jessica Alba's tweet to James Cameron Moment of truth: Deepsea Challenger carrying Carmon is hoisted into the Pacific Ocean on its way to the bottom of the Mariana Trench Deep-water testing of the submersible that explorer and filmmaker James Cameron will pilot to the bottom of the Mariana Trench Pressure's on: Deepsea Challenger undergoes deep-water testing in preparation for yesterday's dive RELEASE, RELEASE, RELEASE!' were the last words Cameron uttered before beginning the dive, according to a Twitter post from the expedition. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who appeared in Cameron's Terminator films, showed his support for the director via Twitter. 'Congrats to my great friend on the deepest solo dive ever. Always a pioneer'. Richard Branson and Jessica Alba were just a couple of the other celebrities who got behind Cameron's journey. The scale of the trench is hard to grasp - it is 120 times larger than the Grand Canyon and more than a mile deeper than Mount Everest is tall.

While it didn't need it, the submarine Cameron helped design has the capability to support life for a 56-hour dive. The first and only time anyone dove to these depths was in 1960. Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard and U.S. Navy Capt. Don Walsh took nearly five hours to reach the bottom and stayed just 20 minutes. James Cameron emerging from the hatch of Deepsea Challenger - the tiny submarine the director will use to travel to the bottom of the Pacific's Mariana trench Race is on: James Cameron's team tested the Deepsea Challenger in the ocean at Jervis Bay, south of Sydney, Australia before he set off Protection: Cameron is commanding the sub from a spherical cockpit - the best shape for withstanding pressure They didn't have much to report on what they saw there, however, because their submarine kicked up so much sand from the ocean floor they couldn't see much. Cameron said earlier this month that, after a 5.1 mile-deep practice run near Papua New Guinea, the pressure 'is in the back of your mind.' The submarine would implode in an instant if it leaked, he said.

But while he was a little apprehensive beforehand, he wasn't scared or nervous while underwater. Swinging above the docks in Guam's Apra Harbor is the Trieste, the submersible that took Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard on the first and only successful manned dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench Precedent: Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh emerge from the bathyscaphe Trieste following their successful manned descent to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in January 1960 'When you are actually on the dive you have to trust the engineering was done right,' he said. The latest dive site, which is at the deepest point in the Mariana Trench, is named Challenger Deep after the British naval vessel HMS Challenger that used sound to first measure its depth. The film director has been an oceanography enthusiast since childhood and has made 72 deep-sea submersible dives. Thirty-three of those dives have been to the wreckage of the Titanic, the subject of his 1997 hit film.

Fingers crossed: James Cameron (far right) and Don Walsh (far left), who was aboard the only other successful manned descent to the Mariana Trench in 1960 US scientists have mapped the deepest part of the world's oceans in greater detail than ever before.The Mariana Trench in the western Pacific runs for about 2,500km and extends down to 10,994m VIDEO: We did it! 'I was just the unlucky son of a b**ch that got crammed in here'. James Cameron surfaces from the Deepsea challenge

Question: Which film director dived to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in March 2012?
Answer: JAMES CAMERON