After years of preparation, filmmaker James Cameron has accomplished his goal of descending to Challenger Deep, the deepest ocean depth on Earth, down 35,756 feet into the Marianna Trench. That's seven miles!
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.
NatGeo has lots more on the expedition. Link
(Image credit: Mark Thiessen, National Geographic)
Previously: The Deepest Ocean Depths
Say what you will about the man's ego, but he can sure put his money where his mouth is!