James Cameron begins deepest dive | Hacker News Reader

James Cameron begins deepest dive

bbc.co.uk

328 pointsed20970 comments

Paul Allen's Twitter seems to be a good source of up-to-the-minute news on the dive: https://twitter.com/#!/PaulGAllen

He says he's on "Octopus," which I assume is one of the support vessels. Aparently Cameron's sub has just touched down on the seabed, Allen's latest tweet:

#deepseachallenge hit bottom at 0752 local time "All systems ok"

and a few minutes before that:

"Now on the bottom 35755 ft!! Plan is for #Deepseachallenge to spend 4-6 hours on the seabed- take samples....Huge Congrats what a relief!!!"

Very exciting!

Octopus is Paul's yacht: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_(yacht)

One of his yachts.

"yacht"

Man, whenever I see Paul Allen whining about Gates or Ballmer, I think, it sure is curious way to screw someone over: turning them into a billionaire.

Does Paul Allen actually whine, or is it just that other people whine on his behalf? All the quotes I've read from him have been classy, or at least reserved.

Now on the way up (18m ago); now surfaced.

They should have had a 737 communicating with the sub, tweeting it, at -35755 Feet below sea level - that is the same distance that commercial airlines cruise at.

They would have had the world record for "longest vertical distance between two terrestrial crafts communicating with one another"

Why is a commercial airline more terrestrial than a space shuttle or the Apollo Command Module? /pedantry

I was trying to specify "within atmosphere" meaning it would be the furthest vertical distance two people could communicate from without being in space.

However I now realize that we have flown planes far higher than ~70K feet - which would have been a greater distance that what i was thinking.

They mention the hull is made of "syntactic foam".

It seems this is a composite of (glass,ceramic,etc) microspheres in a resin matrix. They mention in the bbc video that they glue blocks together and machine them somehow - how does one machine such a composite?

More on syntactic foam: http://www.crgrp.com/technology/materialsportfolio/syntactic...

[edit] yet more:

"Syntactic foam flotation products are available in formulations for shallow water foam to those capable of reaching the bottom of the Mariana Trench."

http://www.esyntactic.com/

"The HZ Grade of syntactic has been formulated to survive the deepest depths of the ocean. This class of syntactic will survive crush pressures greater than 20,000 psi making for safe operation in the Hadal Zone.

http://www.esyntactic.com/dwsfs.htm

So they say the pilot sphere is thick steel. How do they run the control wiring to the outside? Or could the control signals sent through transducers (e.g. ultrasonic?)

They use electrical penetrators such as these: http://seaconworldwide.com/products/penetrators/penetrators/

They are listed as one of the main points of failure on the dive's website: http://deepseachallenge.com/the-expedition/deepsea-challenge...

The official Twitter account: https://twitter.com/#!/DeepChallenge

According to tweets from @PaulGAllen and @PeterDiamandis, Deep Challenge should arrive at the bottom around 14:40 PST.

Edit (14:50 PST): No word from @PaulGAllen since 14:20 PST, when he noted Cameron was at 32160 feet and "not long to seabead now". I hope the people on the support crew are just really busy because Cameron is touching down on the bottom!

He's on the bottom right now. Latest @jimcameron tweet: "Just arrived at the ocean's deepest pt. Hitting bottom never felt so good. Can't wait to share what I'm seeing w/ you @DeepChallenge"

Awesome! According to @PaulGAllen, they hit at 0752 local time, and "all systems ok"!

@PaulGAllen: Pressure at bottom is 16,285 Pounds per square inch at that depth. Design pressure was 16,500 ...Yikes/Amazing!

Amazing that it is working. The engineering must be interesting.

Edit: Apparently the DC weighs a tenth as much as the Trieste (the original bathyscaphe), including all the instruments. Less than a lifetime. . .

Just read that too. That's not much of a safety factor! Still, it's quite a feat and I hope it continues smoothly.

It's quite likely that the 16,500PSI rating is accounting for the safety factor.

You're probably right– at least, I hope you're right. Looks like everything went as expected though, so congratulations to everyone who worked on it. Still waiting to see what they collect...

16,500 PSI was just what it was tested at, and it could apparently withstand significantly greater pressure than that. From the Deep Sea Challenge website:

"The hull, complete with its hatch and viewport, was tested twice in a pressure chamber at Pennsylvania State University to an equivalent full-ocean-depth pressure of 16,500 pounds per square inch (1,138 bars). It passed both tests. Twenty-two strain gauges attached to the sphere gave data that indicated the sphere could withstand up to 140 percent of the test pressure without buckling."

> @PaulGAllen: Pressure at bottom is 16,285 Pounds per square inch at that depth. Design pressure was 16,500 ...Yikes/Amazing! Amazing that it is working. The engineering must be interesting.

I'd love to see a dissection of the submersible once they bring it back up. It'd be interesting to see if there were any seal or structural failures.

Essentially no safety margin. I wonder what's normally considered reasonable.

I have deep respect for this guy. He really cares about these things and makes a living out of it. I share his fascination with the sea and exploration. He really has a message with his movies, but unfortunately not understood by everyone.

Um, I don't think "not understood" is correct. More like not wanting to be hammered over the head with his simplistic, fable-like, morals.

I should have been clearer. I still like his movies, but they're not terribly deep. Entertaining for sure.

What he's doing now is obviously pretty damn impressive.

What i meant was inspiring for exploration, deep sea, the space and so on.

The stories in his movie is often very mainstream, but look at the panorama scenes he makes. He really cares about impressive nature and unknown worlds. I really enjoyed Sanctum because of this, these deep caves are really impressive. The story is just something that makes is accessible for the masses. No theater would show a nature documentation and he wouldn't get the funds to make them.

Are you saying that what Cameron really wanted to do is documentaries?

also: "No theater would show a nature documentation" Remember Earth?

Maybe, probably both, but his approach to create popular movies around is the most intelligent way.

Earth was a failure and if something similar with that budget will be made soon is questionable.

Budget: €30,000,000 (estimated)

Gross: $32,001,863

Cameron can do anything he want's with any budget since decades and earned himself a fortune to do things on his own.

> No theater would show a nature documentation and he wouldn't get the funds to make them.

March of the penguins?

Some of his movies are good. Some of his movies are intentionally crafted solely for popularity (Titanic, for example). When doing so results in multi-billion dollar revenues can you really blame the guy?

How awesome is it that he is tweeting from the deepest point on earth?

It's neat, but keep in mind that we had live video from the moon in the 60's.

Water poses an entirely different issue for radio waves than the emptiness of space.

And this is one of the few events since then that are capable of exciting as much wonder and curiosity. I wasn't alive during the Apollo program but this probably brings me close to the sheer jaw dropping awe I would've experienced had I enjoyed the opportunity to watch the moon landings on tv.

Almost done with ascent:

#deepseachallenge sub now at 700M rising.

https://twitter.com/#!/PaulGAllen/status/184095201709662208

Does anyone know how they communicate with the sub?

My understanding is that radio waves can't penetrate water very far (if at all) and that it's impractical to drag a long cable down.

From Paul Allen:

"#deepseachallenge for the curious, using underwater audio coms UT2000/3000 at 8K freq to hear/talk to Jim five miles of water...30K ft now"

"The UT 3000 is the very first underwater communication system combining analogue and digital communication in one unit. In addition to the telephony and telegraphy mode, the UT 3000 offers unique features such as own noise measurement, horizontal distance measurement and transmission of SOS signals.

"The new digital mode for the first time allows fast and reliable transmission of digital data in water. The possibilities for digital data transfer are nearly unlimited. In the future, own position data, SMS, maneuver reports or target data can be exchanged between submarines in a more secure way.

http://www.naval-technology.com/contractors/sonar/l-3_comm/

http://www.elac-nautik.de/products-naval_acoustics-underwate...

Also: according to the UT 3000 MASQ brochure, it can transmit at up to 1000 bits/sec from 12km to 17km

Edit more: the brochure says the communication protocol overhead is typically 20%. Error correction is included - and features "excellent burst noise rejection". I would think underwater burst noise could be quite long. Would this require an interleaved code? Could someone comment on this?

It is probably 100x cheaper per byte than sending an SMS.

something like this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_telephone

very hard to find info on how it works or at what ranges. but this suggests that it shifts sounds down to lower pitches to travel further. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modulated_ultrasound

Cameron hit the bottom at 14:52 PST, according to @PaulGAllen, and "all systems ok".

Here's Cameron's tweet announcing his arrival: "Just arrived at the ocean's deepest pt. Hitting bottom never felt so good. Can't wait to share what I'm seeing w/ you @DeepChallenge"

https://twitter.com/#!/JimCameron/status/184036733959143425

Am digging through black lifeless seabed mud and ooze - hope to find script for next movie.

Actually the phrase "teeming with life" has been used to describe where he is: http://www.voanews.com/english/news/science-technology/Deep-...

is it really ok to drop the word "maybe" from the front of that quote?

Since the entire article and the point of the whole enterprise is to document that life, I say yes. It's a reasonable rejoinder to "lifeless."

Plus I linked to the article, so it's not like I was being misleading. I was stating my point succinctly.

Guts.

Funny, because I originally wrote out a long-winded comment about how I can imagine doing everything he's done except doing the actually descent myself, because of the incredible bravery. Then I realized my entire train of thought could best be summarized in one word. But of course if it doesn't come packaged in longwinded, pseudoacademic gibberish, HN won't like it. Lesson learned.

Think more that as I am not inside your head, I do not have the slightest clue as to what your one-word post is intended to communicate.

I don't know what you mean by pseduoacademic, we all include citations around here!

DEEPSEA CHALLENGE Expedition Risks & Dangers document describes various possible failure modes of the mission, and answers a few questions below. E.g.: "penetrator failure" addresses electrical connectivity through the survival sphere.

I found the hyperthermia/hypothermia risk interesting. The survival sphere is not temperature controlled, and will adjust to ambient. With equipment heating, that's over 100F and 100% relative humidity at the surface in the tropics. At depth, ambient water temperatures are just above 0C (32F).

http://www.scribd.com/document_downloads/86673244?extension=...

He just landed on the bottom at -10.9 km: https://twitter.com/PaulGAllen/status/184037895819112448

I don't understand, has he left yet?

Either way, this is awesome! I can't wait to see what lies at those depths. I would love to know how the engineers who build the new vessel fixed the silt issue.

Looks like he's started descent.

And I read another article that had more diagrams (maybe Wired?) that showed the propulsion on the craft is at the top, and the pilot space is on the bottom. I guess that solves the silt problem.

Old media: http://www.cnn.com/

New media: https://twitter.com/#!/i/discover

Guess which one isn't covering this historic event.

http://nytimes.com has a story on their front page, top middle.

Underneath the all important Arnold Palmer Invitational results headline article.

Your comment basically suggests that the only difference between "new media" and "old media" is the editorial stance, which stories to emphasize and which to deemphasize. And "new media" essentially caters to the geek/science niche, while old media appeals to the mainstream.

So what exactly is new?

Front and center at the top of cnn.com as I type this.

What a hero

he is back

Creatures down there have been separated from life up here for ever, we need to get the DNA sequenced for some of them, we may find some shocking discoveries of our ancestors 500 million years ago. Are there plans to bring back animal samples?

It says "It also has robotic arms, allowing him to collect samples of rocks and soils".

So a definitely maybe :)

It is very difficult to collect animal samples from such great depths - the pressure difference.

It is one of the reasons as to why giant squids are so mysterious.

He has pressurised containers for samples.

Hmm. If anything I'd expect them to have evolved a lot of interesting deep-sea adaptations that should render them rather unlike our 500 MYA ancestors... remember they've had just as long to evolve to their peculiar environment as we have.

Still, you've got me thinking about this question. I would think the present-day fish that most resembles our ancestor of that time ought to be something less exotic. Perhaps something like a hagfish.

Lift at that depth is few and far between.

How do you know?

I can't wait to see what he manages to film down there!

I really hope he finds a UFO or some sea-dwelling people.

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