Why rescuing a deep sea sub in the depths of the ocean is nearly impossible | 60 Minutes Australia

James Cameron thinkspeak whether directing a movie Epic like Titanic or creating the awesome alien world of Avatar and he loves a challenge when he's away from Hollywood as well his latest Adventure is as Sweeping in scope as anything he's conjured for the Silver Screen Cameron decided to explore the blackest depths of our oceans as far as man has ever ventured it was a treacherous some might say foolhardy undertaking but he did it with the help of a little Aussie know-how [Applause] filmmaker James Cameron is a man who lives life large [Music] family show it's been a beep beep blast come on exactly just hours earlier in the dead of night in the middle of the Pacific Ocean he was about to be the loneliest person on the planet in a bizarre looking craft built to withstand incomprehensible pressure he begins an incredible journey more than 11 kilometers to the deepest point of the ocean deep sea Challenger is launched I was probably apprehensive before the dive but once you get into the process and you're in the countdown and you're going in way in the back of your mind there's a little voice that says you're being bolted into a sub that's about to go to the deepest place in the world you know but you you have to tune that voice out that's the voice you ignore exactly yeah any dive this deep is a ride into the unknown as surface light disappears and the temperature nears freezing an alien world appears after a two-hour Free Fall James Cameron lands on a muddy murky ocean floor place that's never been seen before as I slid across the bottom there's a big mark down there that I'm sure will be there for another 100 years so that's Jim's Mark that's right I was trying to spell my name foreign it's all a very long way from James Cameron's day job Mr James Cameron of red carpet cleaners [Applause] [Music] calling the shots on film sets he's the canadian-born director who has thrilled us with Blockbuster oh my after Blockbuster and it was creating these films that gave him the motivation and the Deep Pockets for his other great love deep water exploration we're right in the middle of the Avalanche you couldn't be any further from Hollywood right now I couldn't be further from Hollywood and I couldn't be happier and I don't mean that as a diss of Hollywood it's just that that I have to kind of code switch when I go back into that world but the very different worlds of Hollywood and exploration have become Inseparable to him Lord see it's not the clock it looks like after making Titanic he was inspired to dive the real wreck yeah this is the clock we did in the movie so he approached his great friend Australian producer Andrew White yeah look at this thing together they set out to explore and document the hidden wonders deep below the surface you seeing this thing look at this it's like the ugliest fish in the world but as with all adventurers their dreams just got bigger or in their case deeper look at this silt we're throwing up this is the Last Frontier for exploration on planet Earth so you've got a whole continent down there that we know nothing about just waiting to be discovered waiting to be discovered and the deepest Frontier of all is the Mariana Trench near the Philippines incredibly in 1960 a two-man submarine got to the bottom but wasn't sophisticated enough to collect samples or take so much as a photograph it was a world still begging to be explored and recorded the launching point for this dive is here in Guam a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean a day's Sail Away James Cameron will be going deeper than Mount Everest is high but this adventure started seven years ago in the most unlikely of places [Music] like art and Sydney's inner West and nestled amongst its cafes one of the movie Industries great secrets has been hiding [Music] Ron Alum is a television technician by trade with a passion for extreme diving do you mind boy this is your baby and he's the one man James Cameron would entrust to build his sub it's an impressive Beast yeah Ron's engineering challenge was to create a sub strong enough to withstand the crushing deep but agile enough to explore the seabed I suppose it's you know like a rocket you know it's designed for vertical travel the ladder yeah that's it what room is that that's pretty tight um okay now what you have to do is you have to get your feet towards you take your bottom down yeah that's it then you can lay into that position oh yeah so I'm ready to go to the bottom of the ocean yeah yeah dark Expedition was very nearly canceled very last minute just how close it came is a story that hasn't been told until now maybe they can take it all off I don't know in February during final tests off the New South Wales South Coast James Cameron's original partner on this whole Expedition Andrew White along with cameraman Mike degree were killed as their Chopper took off to film the sub it really called everything we were doing into question because it forced us to kind of stare into the mirror and stare into our own mortality and think about what risk really means and it was it took a few days uh and everybody sort of thought well if we walk away from this then then everything that they worked for and that they stood for is being thrown away finally after personal tragedy and logistical challenges it's time for last minute preparations this Pond actually has never been dived in until this Expedition for marine geologist Paddy fryer all the excitement is tempered by knowing the risks of heading into such an extreme environment pressure down there is about sixteen thousand pounds per square inch which kind of means what that means take the Eiffel Tower and turn it upside down and put it on your big toe that's the kind of pressure we're talking about and there's another pressure James Cameron has to contend with on his Marathon dive how do you go to the bathroom well did you ever go on a long car trip with your parents because they didn't want to pull over there's a little bottle we call it a range extender all right Jim everybody locked down James Cameron is now completely on his own in a vessel like no other camera prime rib deep sea Challenger is launched unlike a conventional sub the deep sea Challenger is tipped on its nose it has just a small metal Sphere for the pilot the rest of the body is made out of super light Crush proof foam dragging the sub down is half a ton of Weights releasing them sends it back to the surface but if anything should go wrong this untethered craft is well beyond the reach of rescue you're in a place that's so remote nobody could come and help you I mean if I got into trouble in Earth orbit we could always ask the Russians to come and help us or even the Chinese there's no there's no help where we went with this vehicle all right we got us a dumbo hoping for this for a while on James Cameron's many previous voyages into the deep he has filmed the bizarre and improbable every single dive you're going to see something you've never seen before but the Mariana Trench is triple those depths again and here on the world's deepest ocean floor the search for life is not unlike exploring on distant planets remote and hostile what I find amazing is the fact that more people have walked on the moon than have gone where you just went yeah yeah it's true it is amazing and it's right here on Earth so I'm down there feeling as isolated as if I was on The Far Side of the Moon by myself and guess who calls me my wife [Laughter] which just you know men out there if there's any doubt in your mind whatsoever they will find you pilot coming out after a lifetime of dreaming seven years building and Untold Millions spent he did it this is mud from the Challenger Deep and not only that he brought back some of the trench floor for research so this is his precious as gold absolutely also you know how much it costs to get that it's not much to look at but for Patty even the discovery of bacteria in this tiny bag of mud is scientific Pay Dirt this trip has been like Christmas for you oh gosh I'll say it certainly has 35 years Christmas in April I'm studying this trench and you've learned more in the last two weeks oh it's amazing it really has been a trip and it won't be the last I can't believe this was your home for 55 days 55 days yeah yeah in the extraordinary life of James Cameron you get the sense that an even Bolder Adventure is never far away so do you consider yourself more an Explorer than a filmmaker or a tough question answer when I'm making a film I think about exploring when I'm exploring I think about making a film the grass is always greener on the other side no I I don't make me choose I want it all hello I'm Nick McKenzie thanks for watching 60 Minutes Australia subscribe to our Channel now for brand new stories and exclusive Clips every week don't miss out on our extra minute segments and full episodes of 60 Minutes on 9now.com.u and the nine Now app

Channel: 60 Minutes Australia

Views: 1,764,234

Keywords: 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes Australia, Liz Hayes, Tara Brown, Tom Steinfort, 60Mins, Amelia Adams, news, world news, news australia, investigative journalism, 60 minutes australia youtube, 60 minutes youtube, 60 minutes episodes, 60 minutes australia episodes, 60 minutes australia, 60 minutes, titanic, titanic wreck, titanic wreckage, missing sub, missing titanic sub, 5 people missing, atlantic ocean, remote atlantic ocean, james cameron

Id: Zvt32bOZ68A

Length: 11min 43sec (703 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 20 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/TesseractToo]

Notes: 60 Minutes Australia put this up yesterday with a bit of a confusing title (as it doesn't discuss the current events of the Titanic tourist sub being missing) but is a clip of a longer documentary, but worth it if you are following this to compare how a privately constructed submersible could be made without extreme cost cutting measures

[u/elrugmunchero]

1.25 speed and she sounds normal

[u/foxdriver]

this topic gives me anxiety