James Cameron in the Mariana Trench

[Corsair 115]

There was a TED talk I watched on Netflix the other day where Cameron was talking about his interest in the deep ocean and the various expeditions he went on, and how that all related to his interests in storytelling and science fiction as a youngster.

 

[Pulvinar]

I would love to know what kind of electrical feedthroughs they use for all the control cables.

I was wondering that too. I didn't see cables in any of the pictures, but my guess is that each conductor and concentric (glass?) insulator would be conical so the pressure would only tighten their seal.

 

[hgc]

This whole thing reminded me of a movie I saw as a kid, and haven't thought about since. It's 1973's The Neptune Factor, with Ben Gazzara, Walter Pidgeon and Ernest Borgnine. It's about a sea lab on the ocean floor that's knocked loose by an earthquake, tumbles down a trench, and has to be rescued with an experimental deep diving sub.

 

[Marduk]

I can't wait to see the images.
Assuming he returns.
?

the idea was just to get rid of him, now please all join me in wishing Bono a great journey to skull island followed by Stings first global circumference in a rocket plane

Earth free of woo promoters by 2020 hopefully

 

[quarky]

bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb

 

[lionking]

An amazing achievement. He could have sat on his arse for the rest of his life sipping champagne. Good on him.

 

[Halfcentaur]

the idea was just to get rid of him, now please all join me in wishing Bono a great journey to skull island followed by Stings first global circumference in a rocket plane

Earth free of woo promoters by 2020 hopefully

Is Cameron a woo promoter?

 

[arthwollipot]

An amazing achievement. He could have sat on his arse for the rest of his life sipping champagne. Good on him.

Yeah, that was my thought too. Now if he had managed to do some actual scientific discovery, I would have been even more impressed.

 

[Psi Baba]

You're all missing the most significant milestone of this mission:



Deepest tweet ever.

It's great that he was able to send such a cheerful Tweet and not have to repeat Virgil's "text message" from The Abyss: "Knew this was one way ticket, but you know I had to come."

 

[Marduk]

Is Cameron a woo promoter?

no sorry, my bad, I got him mixed up with Bob "great flood" Ballard
its so easy to get those oceanographers mixed up because along with Matt Hooper and Jaques Cousteau they are almost the only ones I know

Captain Nemo, see thats the fourth.

 

[X]

Are pictures from the deep being released anywhere yet?

 

[NoahFence]

I think he's going back down, and collecting film for a National Geographic program to be released next year.

 

[X]

I don't want to wait that long...

 

[quarky]

bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb

what the heck happened to my computer? Last night, every time I touched a letter, only endless b's happened. Seems ok now.
weird.

 

[Roboramma]

what the heck happened to my computer? Last night, every time I touched a letter, only endless b's happened. Seems ok now.
weird.

So that extremely eloquent and thought provoking post was only an accident?

 

[quarky]

Yup.
I was trying to post about an idea related to deep dives.
Hypothetically, it seems like a plastic bag that had a high pressure tank inside could manage a deep dive. As it drops, the tank would release air to maintain a neutral pressure on the membrane. It would need to be weighted to go down. To come up, the weight would be released gradually, and a pump would push the air back into the pressure tank, that the plastic bag would maintain the same size and shape.
Probably not something to put a person in, but wouldn't a thin membrane suffice as the exterior containment? As opposed to a really thick hull of steel?

Or, were all the bbb's more eloquent?

 

[phunk]

Yup.
I was trying to post about an idea related to deep dives.
Hypothetically, it seems like a plastic bag that had a high pressure tank inside could manage a deep dive. As it drops, the tank would release air to maintain a neutral pressure on the membrane. It would need to be weighted to go down. To come up, the weight would be released gradually, and a pump would push the air back into the pressure tank, that the plastic bag would maintain the same size and shape.
Probably not something to put a person in, but wouldn't a thin membrane suffice as the exterior containment? As opposed to a really thick hull of steel?

Or, were all the bbb's more eloquent?

Yes, that works fine, as long as it's unmanned and everything inside the bubble can survive immense pressure.

 

[Corsair 115]

An amazing achievement. He could have sat on his arse for the rest of his life sipping champagne. Good on him.

In the TED talk Cameron gave that I mentioned earlier, he actually made a remark along those lines. He said that when he came back to make Avatar, a lot of people might have thought he had just disappeared for ten years, lying on a beach sipping champagne. But instead he had been making numerous documentaries, often spending years working on them, getting them organized, creating new technology needed to accomplish them, and so forth.

 

[Checkmite]

no sorry, my bad, I got him mixed up with Bob "great flood" Ballard
its so easy to get those oceanographers mixed up because along with Matt Hooper and Jaques Cousteau they are almost the only ones I know

Captain Nemo, see thats the fourth.

No Steve Zissou?

 

[Marduk]

No Steve Zissou?

I'm about 50/50 with real and fictitious oceanographers already
don't push me over the edge