Deepsea Challenge 3D Page #3

or am I an explorer

who does filming on the side?

(Suzy) When he decided ultimately to do Avatar,

he was really

debating back and forth,

was he going to quit directing

as a Hollywood director

and just go do expeditions,

which was something he--

he loves it

He lives it. He breathes it. I mean, he loves making films, too.

But theres

something about--

about Jim and the sea.

Look at this thing.

Its incredible.

My problem is I'm curious.

I'm a curious monkey and I need to go see for myself, you know.

I've seen some pretty astonishing things in the depths,

things that fill

your soul with wonder.

What always gets me

is how life adapts.

It can adapt

to the crushing pressure.

It can adapt

to the absolute darkness.

It can feed off jets of water

that are hot enough

to melt lead.

But the question is, can life adapt to the ultimate pressure

36,000 feet down?

Maybe.

The only way to know is to go down there and take a look.

(Walt) We first met Jim on The Abyss 25 years ago.

He was maniacally

focused and driven

and now I think he actually enjoys inspiring the group.

Hes trying to reach

the state of perfection

and achievement and he wants everyone to kind of rise to that level.

(James) Pushing people is not about yelling at them.

its about creating goals

that are achievable,

whether they think

the yre achievable or not.

Yeah, the only reason were filling it is so we can pressure test the things

because we need to start this pressure qualification process.

Weve never controlled a J-box from the pack, but the J-box-- Why not?

Because we havent got to that stage in the integration yet.

Every single time youve gone up a tier in the architecture

youve had to pull everything apart and solder resisters.

What makes you think its going to be any different now?

I designed the J-boxes.

Ooh.

You just stuck

your neck out so far.

This isnt an option for him.

He has to do it.

its such

an internal drive for him

that once hes started that train, its not going to stop.

Were coming to that funnel where... Everything needs to be done at once.

(Dave) We got five people want in this sphere at one time.

But only one person

can work in it.

Five people want

the lower pod at one time,

but theres only

one person can work in it.

Were not project

planning no more.

What were doing is were firefighting. Yeah.

They're all tired. The yre all working 16-hour days.

To say that our team is not ready yet to go out to sea is an understatement.

Were so far from ready

its not even funny.

Our biggest enemy

at the moment is time.

(James)Well, we obviously

underestimated the systems integration.

So the new deadline

is February 6th.

Come hell or high water,

thats when we 're sailing.

Nobody outside the project

has seen Deepsea Challenger

and the first to do so

is Don Walsh,

the only living person whos been to the worlds deepest spot.

And by crazy coincidence,

hes arriving

on the anniversary

of his famous dive.

This is Kawasaki

racing green.

These are

racing colors, baby.

You had seen

conceptual drawings.

You had an idea and you knew that it was underway.

What is your reaction

to this?

Oh, I'm very excited. I mean, what took you so long? 52 years, I mean...

To the day.

Where have you been?

To the day.

So, Don, do you have

any tips for Jim

at about 20,000 feet

if he hears a crack?

If you can hear it,

you're still alive,

you might as well

keep on with the dive.

You never hear the one that gets you.

(Don) Jacques Piccard and myself made a dive

to the deepest place

in the world oceans.

The motivation was to test out a platform and not to do science.

That would come later.

And what better test than the ultimate depth in the ocean?

Passing 3,800 fathoms.

Coming up on 5,000 fathoms.

[bang]

What the hell

was that?

(Jacques)

We are still descending.

Turn everything off.

(Don) At 30,000 feet, there was this huge bang

and we didnt know

what it was.

I looked through the window

in the entrance hatch.

You better come

take a look at this.

And I could see this crack across that large acrylic window.

In my opinion, this

is not a serious problem.

There is no reason to ascend.

Agreed.

Uh-huh?

Uh-huh.

(Don) So, if in fact there d been a pressure boundary failure,

we would have been dead

before we knew it.

There were

no indications of problems,

so we decided

to continue on down.

Okay.

I can see the bottom now.

Coming up slowly.

There it is. Looks like we found it, Jacques.

After we landed, we stirred up a big cloud of sediment

and it was just like somebody had painted the front of the window white.

It was like looking

into a bowl of milk.

Cest la vie.

And after about 20 minutes, we realized it wasnt going to go away very soon.

So we had 5 hours 15 minutes down, 20 minutes on the bottom,

and about 3 hours

coming back up.

And the purpose of this

is to signal the fact

that were transitioning from building a sub to operating a sub.

So, Andrew Wight came up with a crazy, potentially brilliant idea

that since

were heading to Guam

to dive the Challenger Deep,

were going to be going right through Papua New Guinea.

There happens to be a spot.

They call it Jacquinot Bay.

This is a perfect place

to sea trial the sub.

The thing that youve all got to start to realize now

is that you're going

to have no support

other than the people

that are around you.

Youve just got to now get

into a different mindset.

So, whoever you're bunking with, be good friends,

because you're going to be

with them for a while.

If you snore,

well, too bad.

Everybody here is here

because you're good.

Because you're good

at what you do.

And youve proven yourselves to the project.

And were going to go out and do something truly extraordinary.

Theres always a ramp up right before the expedition leaves.

Theres an acceleration

of energy

and a lot

of last minute problems

as everythings

coming together.

Were running a race and you just have that burst of energy

comes from some where

and you just push hard.

I think we got everybody.

There are a lot of very worthy goals on this project,

but one of them is just

the fun of the challenge.

its the fun

of being able to say

look what

a little group of people

with no adult supervision can do if they put their minds to it.

Who wants to dive

a sub today?

Ar.

Ar. Exactly.

All right. See you in the sunshine. God speed below.

(John) And hold. Final checks.

(James)

Lower away.

Looking good.

Starboard.

(James) When the hatch gets bolted shut,

there 's a moment

where you're suddenly

in a very quiet,

very finite world.

its like being

in a space capsule.

(Dave on radio) Okay, Challenger, stand by to get wet.

Yeah, roger that. Ready.

Boosh.

Hatch is secure.

No leaks.

Please make a note that the camera pan tilt, the pan is wired backwards.

COPY-

I'm not getting a reading

on the altimeter at all.

Should I be? Yeah, you should be. Were looking into it.

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