About a week and a half ago, a trip was made to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean that hadn't been made for 52 years. There are a number of remarkable things about this trip in my mind, the first being that it was not spear headed by some government agency but rather by a well known movie director James Cameron. He did receive some sponsorship from the likes of National Geographic and others in the scientific community, but for the most part, he used his own money for the trip. Even more remarkable is that he didn't use any conventional submarine for this endeavor, rather, he designed and built his own in an attempt to make the dive and subsequent rise from the bottom quicker. The major change in the submarine's design? It was designed and built like a vertical torpedo rather than the horizontal design we most typically think of when we think of submarines. This just goes to show that if there is a will, there is a way. For a person known for their movies to design and build a ground breaking submarine capable of withstanding the pressure almost seven miles beneath the ocean surface is incredible. Even better is that his design actually works, despite a few small problems. So on his trip down to the Challenger Deep, visited only once before in history, what exactly did he find? Not much it turns out despite a few small creatures no bigger than an inch long.
No one knew what would be found seven miles down in the ocean. The last trip conducted 52 years ago by the U.S. Navy didn't go nearly as well as this latest one did. On the previous trip, the approach to the bottom stirred up enormous amounts of sediment rendering the landscape outside the submarine practically invisible. On top of that, the time spent at the bottom was only 20 minutes compared with the 3 hours that James Cameron spent there. But finding nothing down there doesn't mean some larger creatures don't exist at those depths. As Cameron put it, he only saw a small portion of an area that is 50 times larger than the Grand Canyon. They had also planned on setting some bait to hopefully lure some bigger fish at those depths, but due to hydraulic failures, had to postpone that till next time. (More about his trip here.) So what does all this mean; this trip down to the bottom of the Pacific, this new groundbreaking submarine. To me, it means that as time goes on and governments need to focus more on the needs of the people than exploratory missions, we will need to rely more heavily on personally financed endeavors such as this one to perpetually explore the unexplored. This is the first time where the whole idea of a submarine was upended and reconfigured, all by a person with an idea and a mission. Perhaps its time for the scientific community to begin relying more heavily on personally financed missions than ones financed by governments or government agencies.
If James Cameron can figure out a way of designing and building a submarine that can withstand the pressures of the Challenger Deep, than why can't we find someone who can design and build an aircraft capable of sustained outer orbital flight, or space flight. The oceans have received a vital boost in terms of exploration by James Cameron. Now its time we gave space a boost. I read some comments online that people view James Cameron's endeavors as a money making scheme, one driven by profits and future movies down the road. Well, that may be the case, but if it also opens up the Challenger Deep to continued and regular exploration, than it is worth it. If one man's personal mission can benefit both himself and the scientific community, than what's the problem. Even if it benefited only himself and all we got to see was visions of that deep, dark world, than so be it. But that's not the case. As James Cameron did for the ocean's, we now need someone to create a re-usable spacecraft capable that can bring us back to space on a regular basis. With the space shuttle being retired and no new developments on the government side in terms of space exploration, we need to turn to the private sector to get what we need. But in any case, most of us will never travel to the bottom of the ocean or to vast expanses of space, but at least we can view other's endeavors and their explorations on the big screen.
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