18 thoughts on ““Very Lunar, A Very Desolate Place””

  1. While it’s easier to get to the ocean floor, it’s much easier to live on the moon or mars. You really can’t go for a walk on the ocean floor. Then again, radiation mitigation tempers that a bit.

    Near shorelines, on the other hand, might be usable real estate.

    1. Hmm. I’m not all that sure. Thermal regulation should be easier on the ocean floor. You already mentioned radiation. Oxygen is reasonably simple to get at (it just needs some electricity). Agreed, going for a walk is hard.

        1. Later on he talked about the continental shelf, so I assume for ocean floor he was talking about something a few miles down. But why make things hard on yourself–find somewhere close to land and away from shipping channels–a couple hundred feet under is going to be orders of magnitude cheaper than off-planet, you don’t have to worry about air (too much) or radiation or gravity or water or thermal regulation. Emergency egress is a lot easier as well. But maybe building in a desert would be even cheaper.

  2. Four times as many men have walked on the moon as have visited the Challenger Deep. Only a couple of unmanned vehicles have made it there and one was subsequently lost. There are many other places in the deep ocean that have never been explored by manned or unmanned vehicles. Richard Branson is reviving a deep submersible that was being developed for Steve Fosset. Together, these two vehicles will be able to explore more of the deep ocean than anything we’ve ever had before. Very, very cool.

    1. Add to the list Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

      Branson is reported to be spending $17M on his sub, Schmidt $40M.

      Those amounts are comparable to the cost of a business jet, a Soyuz flight to ISS, or (in the near future) a suborbital spacecraft.

      The implications of that are left as an exercise for the student.

  3. Cameron’s politics aside this is quite an accomplishment for him. Kudos on a successful dive Mr. Cameron!

    1. I can’t put his politics aside, nor the fact that one of his biggest films was the ridiculous eco-fable Avatar — to say nothing of Titanic which inflicted that dreadful Celine Dion song upon the world.

      1. Those who disagree with Cameron’s politics can take comfort in the fact that he’s sunk to a new low.

        Thank you very much. I’ll be here all week. 🙂

        1. What’s so innovative about Cameron’s submarine is that instead of dropping ballast to return to the surface, he just inflates his ego.

      2. I haven’t seen Titanic (yes, I’m the one), but didn’t it also feature a song by Maire Brennan?

        That ought to compensate for whatever travesty Celine inflicted. Especially if she did it in Gaelic.

        1. Actually on Titanic you are one of at least two. I haven’t seen it and have no interest in seeing it. Though I admit watching Leonardo DiCaprio go down for the third time might be worth the effort.

      3. I’ll say this for the guy – he was bad mouthing the Alberta oil sands, but then did something that few celebrity eco-nuts do: he came here and actually saw them for himself. He hasn’t talked about them since then.

  4. Great accomplishment. Hopefully this will open up the ocean trenches to more research, especially in terms of biological research.

  5. How soon can we buy some tube worm sushi? Or from the really, really deep, fried shrimp?

    If we can’t exploit this area, why go?

      1. I wonder what people would pay for a rock from the Challenger Deep? It could be a test case for the market value of Moon rocks.

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