A Dive to Challenger Deep

摘要

Humans have always been fascinated by the deep sea. Early sketches of submarines in the 16th century led to the construction of the first underwater vehicle in 1623. By the 18th century, submarines were used for warfare. In 1870, Jules Verne created a fictional world of sea monsters and life aboard the mystical submarine Nautilus that could descend 20 km into the sea. The novel captured the imagination of millions of people. Reality caught up with fiction on 23 January 1960, when U.S. Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh and Swiss engineer and ocean-ographer Jacques Piccard descended in the bathyscaphe Trieste more than 10,800 m to the bottom of the deepest area of the world's ocean, the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench-and returned home safely. However, Trieste was extremely bulky and not designed for exploration. On 26 March 2012, a technologically advanced research submersible was finally ready to brave a return to the site, and another human made that same round trip, reigniting the excitement of exploring the deep ocean. But what James Cameron accomplished during his 7 hours in the Deepsea Challenger submersible (see the first figure) was far more than just one more journey to "the abyss."