Right about now , getting aside from it all is a passably beguiling conception . With external change of location becoming near - unacceptable for much of the planet , you might have been hotly followingSpaceX ’s plans to send tourists to the ISS ( after all , it is thebest property to quarantine ) . But thanks to a wealthy Internet Explorer , come May , a few golden passengers will be able-bodied to get by the pandemic for a short time by diving to the deepest known point in Earth ’s oceans .
The Challenger Deep is the deepest hump period of the Earth ’s seabed and is situated at the southern end of the Mariana Trench in the Western Pacific Ocean . The gamy H2O imperativeness at this huge profoundness means that operating a submersible is a frail operation . The first attempt was made back in 1960 by oceanographer Don Walsh and oceanographer and direct Jacques Piccard , reaching about 10,916 meters ( 35,814 feet ) . In March 2012 , the first solo descent was made by motion picture managing director James Cameron who reach 10,908 meters ( 35,787 feet ) .
Victor Vescovo , a wealthy explorer and retired naval officer , made his first solo journeying to the trench in April 2019 and beat the man disc for the big depth , trumping Cameron at 10,928 meter ( 35,853 feet ) . In May of the same year , he hopped in his submersible again and became the first soul ever to have visited the Challenger Deep twice . This May , Vescovo is put to return to the Challenger Deep with civilian passengers on a retired Navy surveillance vessel that ’s been repurposed for scientific inquiry .
The trip will take eight days and include three nosedive to the Challenger Deep , costing $ 750,000 per soul . So far , they have two fully - hold groups for May . We caught up with the naval officeholder turn ocean honkytonk criminal record - breaker to find out what it ’s like to dive over 10,000 meter in a tiny submersible and what his next passengers can expect from the journeying .
What are the strangest sensations you experience when plunk to the deep know point of the ocean?What is most surprising or unknown is just how quiet and unagitated it is to lento descend profoundly , and recondite , and still deeper . It is like the opposite of a roquette launching . Nothing seems to change in the submersible space capsule except that digital deepness gauge just showing deeper and deep , all the while knowing that that water press is climbing to almost insane level by the sentence you get to the bottom – eight tons per straightforward inch . You know it is out there , perfectly massive crush pressure , but inside , everything is entirely quiet and calm . A very strange flavor sometimes . Especially when you see that digital depth readout cross 10,000 m …
Do guests attending the Challenger Deep nose dive in May have to fulfil any criteria to fall in you on the dive?No , they just have to be below about 100 kilogram ( 220 ) pounds just to jibe through a fair narrow hatch . But the crew capsule bide at a constant one atmosphere throughout the prima donna , so there is no decompression or any other physical tension on the physical structure . well-nigh anyone can now go to the bottom of the ocean in this fomite .
What sort of life can they bear to see at the bottom?I think it is well described as like going to the exposed desert . Life there is spare , but sure as shooting present . It can just take some prison term and good luck to see it . But when you do , it is very unique and particular because it is survive in one of the most hostile place on Earth , and here they are , swimming around in total blackness their whole lives . The usual suspects down there are sea cucumbers – sea cucumber – and amphipods . However , there is also a very plentiful collection of unique microbes , but you just ca n’t see them with the naked eye , unluckily . But they are no less interesting and authoritative , scientifically .
Have you ever had any awful wildlife encounters?My favorite was find out a holothurian on the bottom of the world – the Challenger Deep – within just 10 minute of arc of getting there . At first I thought it was a carcass , but no , it was gently undulating and swimming away from me with lilliputian black eyestalks around its edges . It was fairly low , and totally transparent so I could see its insides like I had X - beam vision . But it was just go about its simple stage business of finding something to consume , and evidently not real excited about getting closely to this brilliant - light up starship - thing coming up to it !
How long are you able to stay at the bottom of the dive in the submersible?The long I spent down at the bottom of the Challenger Deep was just over 4 hours . It took 4 hours to go down , 4 to get up , so I expend well over 12 hour in the sub . With recent power upgrades , we can stay down even longer , since electric baron is really the limiting factor on our endurance . Now we can have missions probably 14 or even 16 hours long with 6 - 8 60 minutes on the bottom . We think that is a huge melioration from the 15 minutes they drop on the bottom in 1960 or 2.5 hours in 2012 .
