'Titanic' Director Cameron heads for the deepest point on earth.

                                          "Deepsea Challenger"

"Titanic" director James Cameron will attempt to dive to the deepest place on earth - the deepest any human has gone solo- in a submersible "as futuristic as anything in his movies," project partner National Geographic Scientific Institution says.  He is headed for the Mariana Trench's Challenger Deep; at seven miles deep, Mount Everest would be one mile below the surface if it were dropped here.

Cameron has already broken the record during testing of his submersible 'Deepsea Challenger' off Papua New Guinea earlier this month, when he dived 5.1 miles below the surface, says National Geographic. He will return from Challenger Deep in the Western Pacific with photographs, animal specimens and other samples; National Geographic said the mission would "expand our knowledge and understanding of these largely unknown parts of the planet." Scientists say that the dive will also help in predict earthquakes and answer some questions on how life began on the planet.

Fifty seven year old Cameron will not be the first human to visit Challenger Deep- two men aboard the US Navy submersible Trieste hold that honour since 1960. They could stay down for only twenty minutes, though, with a view obscured by silt stirred up when they landed. Cameron expects to stay six hours solo on the seafloor during which he will film and collect specimens with a robotic arm. His submersible, the 26 foot Deepsea Challenger, weighs just 12 tonnes; twelve times lighter than Trieste. Cameron will be stuffed into a three and half foot steel "pilot sphere", where he will not be able to extend his arms or legs completely. The pressure on the submersible will be- at 16,000 lbs per square inch- tremendous. "It would be about the equivalent of turning the Eiffel Tower upside down and resting it on your big toe," says team member Patricia Fryer.

"It's like a clown car in there," Cameron said. "You barely have room to get in, and then they hand you another 50 pounds of equipment."

Cameron and his team will test the Deep Sea Challenger off Guam next, close to the 1500 mile long Mariana Trench. For safety, the submersible has three independent systems that can jettison the heavy steel plates that allow it to sink—sending the craft up to the water surface automatically. Because of the extreme pressure, the Deep Sea Challenge will actually shrink more than six centimetres during the one and a half hour long descent. Once down, twelve thrusters will allow it to move or hover in place. Special independent 'landers' with bait sent down separately will lure any sea creatures which will be retrieved "still cold, still under pressure" by the team for study, says Kevin Hardy of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, adding that some of these species may be alien. "If you can imagine a wild animal, you'll find it down there," he says.

Cameron, who built his miniature submarine secretly in Australia over eight years, is well aware of the dangers of the expedition. "When you're making a movie, everybody's read the script and they know what's going to happen next," he says. "When you're on an expedition, nature hasn't read the script, the ocean hasn't read the script, and no one knows what's going to happen next," he says.

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New expedition to raise the Titanic ‘virtually’

The bow of the Titanic at rest on the bottom of the North Atlantic, about 400 miles southeast of Newfoundland. pic AP

In a challenging deep-sea expedition to the floor of the Atlantic, a “dream team” of scientists, maritime archaeologists and oceanographers will virtually raise the Titanic by making the first detailed 3D map of the famous wreck. A three-week mission will see the team probing a three square mile area two and a half miles beneath the ocean using modern submersible robots, advanced imaging equipment and high definition cameras; the first such attempt since the Titanic wreck discovery in 1985.




The expedition, organised by RMS Titanic Inc, which has exclusive salvage rights to the wreck, will leave St. John's, Newfoundland on Aug. 18 in partnership with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. The organisers say that they will not collect any artefacts out of the hundreds of thousands scattered on the ocean floor, but will instead build an interactive "video map" of the wreck that will be available to the public online. "We are raising the Titanic in a virtual sense. The pay-off is to let people explore and experience the Titanic on their own," said David Gallo, Director of special projects at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Massachusetts. "It's also to gain information of archaeological importance from maybe hundreds of thousands of artefacts on the seabed. Every one is a bit of evidence of how the ship sank."



Scientists will also try to determine how quickly the Titanic is disintegrating. Many areas have already crumbled, and erosion is feared to have affected significant parts of the wreck. The 30-person expedition crew will use forensics technology to assess damage to the bow and the stern areas, which separated and sank a third of a mile apart; the mission is being billed as “the most advanced scientific mission to the Titanic” by many observers. Says Gallo, "For the first time, we're really going to treat it as an archaeological site with two things in mind. One is to preserve the legacy of the ship by enhancing the story of the Titanic itself. The second part is to really understand what the state of the ship is."

Experts say that the Titanic wreck has been subjected to ‘fierce deep-ocean currents, salt water and intense pressure’ that will make the expedition’s job even more challenging; in addition, the artefacts are scattered and are lying in nearly a century’s worth of sediment. Gallo is well aware of this. "We're actually treating it like a crime scene," he told reporters.

The lead vessel, the RV Jean Charcot will control three submersibles and the latest sonar, acoustic and filming technology. Images will be compared to the original ones taken 25 years ago, when the wreck was first discovered, to measure the effects of erosion.

"Never before have we had the scientific and technological means to discover so much of an expedition to Titanic," said P.H. Nargeolet, the veteran diver with more than 30 dives to the Titanic to his credit. "We're going to see things we haven't seen before. Technology has really evolved in the last 25 years."

RMS Titanic’s last expedition to the site was in 2004, after which it has been conducting travelling displays of the Titanic artefacts, which they say have been viewed by “tens of millions of people worldwide”.
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