James Cameron close to diving to deepest ocean (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Rebecca Morelle
Science reporter, BBC News

Director James Cameron has said that he is close to diving 11km (seven miles) down to the deepest part of the ocean, the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific.

He has just successfully completed a test-dive 8km (five miles) down off the coast of Papua New Guinea.

He now hopes to reach the world's deepest point in his one-man submersible in the coming weeks.

Only two people have been to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, back in 1960.

Mr Cameron said: "The deep trenches are the last unexplored frontier on our planet, with scientific riches enough to fill 100 years of exploration."
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more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17289535
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17041438





Only two people have ever visited the deepest point in the ocean -- 52 years ago.

[Johnny Rico]

1. He's going to Europa?

Oh...I guess not.

Still pretty darn cool, credit where it's due!

[Dead_Parrot]

2. Cool, so long as this doesn't lead to "The Abyss 2"

[LongTomH]

3. The disturbing aspect of all this is that it's all billionaire boy adventurers

You've got billionaires like Cameron, Richard Branson, and Eric Schmidt of Google, spending millions to dive into the abyss for fun. Oh, and they're going to do a little science while they're there. Isn't that just too, too lovely of them?

When Lt. Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard dived into the Marianas Trench in 1959/1960, it was part of the U.S. Navy's Project Nekton. Back then, we had money to spend on science, since the millionaires and billionaires were being taxed at a top marginal rate of 91% (70% during the Apollo project).

Now, we don't have any way to send American astronauts into space, except on Russian rockets. But, take heart, we've got several private companies getting ready to send billionaire boy space cadets into space and to the deeps:

Florida-based company Triton Submarines plan to build a sub that can take adventure tourists down to the bottom of the ocean for $250,000 a ticket.