After several days of weather delay, the Deepsea Challenger expedition began its journey on Monday evening, said Ellen Stanley, a spokeswoman for National Geographic, who is one of the project sponsors.
Cameron plans take his lime-green, single-pilot submarine to the deepest point in the ocean — about 7 miles down — for about six hours to collect all sorts of scientific data and never-before-seen footage. One other submersible reached this point during an expedition in 1960, but it was unable to explore at length.
“They were just trying to provide that the U.S. Navy and that bathyscaph could do it — could actually do the act of getting down there,” Cameron told the Pacific Daily News during an interview last week. “But that is not how we approached this. We designed this vehicle as a science platform.”
The submarine includes a mechanical arm hat can pick up rock samples and undersea life, Cameron said. The submarine also expects to find numerous new species of bacterial in sediment samples, Cameron said. Three-dimensional cameras will capture the whole dive.
The scientific discoveries made on Cameron’s voyage will also be invaluable to the Mariana Trench National Monument, said Susan White, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife representative.
White is on Cameron’s expedition to help regulate the expedition to the trench monument, but she said the dive offers a rare glimpse into the unknown.
The trench may be a national monument, but most of it is out of reach of its caretakers, she said. Finally, an explorer will be able to bring back firsthand knowledge of the monument, she said.
“If you look at a picture, do you get the same feeling as if you see it yourself?” White said. “It’s that kinda of thing. It’s not just the visual image that is important, but how it makes you feel. And here we have a master storyteller who can probably do that better than anybody.
The Marianas Trench was made a national monument by former President George W. Bush in 2009.
James Cameron- Popular Filmmaker who produced movies such as Titanic, Avatar, and Terminator about to head to the World's Deepest Point called the Challenger's Deep...with a depth of 10902 metres (35768 ft) to 10916 metres (35814 ft), The world's highest mountain, Mount Everest would easily drown!
