National Geographic
DEEPSEA CHALLENGE
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JAMES CAMERON’S DEEPSEA CHALLENGE 3D
Learn more about the film.
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Preparing for a Voyage to the Deep
After seven years spent on research, design, and testing, one question remained: Could the sub survive the crushing pressure at 36,000 feet?
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Photos: Onward and Downward
Travel along on the expedition—from building the sub to the relief of resurfacing after the dive.
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Pressure Dive
James Cameron was poised above the deepest place on Earth. A key safety system had failed. But it was now, or never. Read Cameron’s first-person account.
Read MoreThe Technology
As with spaceships, deep-sea submersibles must be engineered to accommodate innumerable challenges, including dramatic changes in pressure and temperature and a total absence of sunlight. In the process of meeting these challenges, the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER submersible engineering team has made historic breakthroughs in materials science, incorporated unique approaches to structural engineering, and innovated new ways of imaging through an ultrasmall stereoscopic camera capable of withstanding the pressure at full ocean depth. After reaching the seafloor, the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER was able to explore the bottom for several hours—dramatically longer than the 20 minutes U.S. Navy Lt. Don Walsh and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard were able to spend there during their expedition in the bathyscaphe Trieste on January 23, 1960.
Read moreThe Science
The DEEPSEA CHALLENGER is designed as a science platform. It has the ability to collect rock and sediment samples, as well as biology samples, and is equipped with powerful lights and a suite of wide-field and macro 3-D high-definition cameras for observing fauna alive in their natural habitat and providing context images for all samples taken. Scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the University of Hawai'i, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory participated in the mission on the ship, as did other scientists on shore. Their research interests include marine biology and microbiology, astrobiology, and marine geology and geophysics.
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