I know I already wrote about this, but I just want to revisit James Cameron's journey to the deepest part of the ocean, because on Monday March 26, he actually did it!  And he broke a world record for the deepest solo dive.  Pretty amazing.

Here's the video from the NatGeo website:  http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/news/environment-news/cameron-deepest-dive-record-vin/

He went to The Challenger Deep, which is a small part of the Mariana Trench that's 50 times bigger than the Grand Canyon.  Even as someone who has never been to the Grand Canyon, I know that's gigantic.

Another interesting thing from that video, Cameron says that the entire sub he was in shrinks 3 inches under water because of all the pressure, and that he could actually see the walls pushing in towards him.  I can't imagine having a wall move towards me for 20 minutes, let alone the couple hours Cameron was in that submarine.

Today, the Christian Science Monitor called him a "Modern Day Jules Vernes," in a story discussing Cameron's remarkable journey and also the possibility of making this journey available as one day adventures for scientists or even commercial passengers with exceptionally deep pockets.  One ticket would cost as much as $250,000, which is more than my college tuition.  The company trying to make this happen is Triton Submarines in Vero Beach, Florida, and they're working on a reality show focused on their progress.

The article also quotes the company's VP Marc Deppe, who says "We want kids carrying submarine lunchboxes to school, wearing submarine shirts.  When you're a kid and you see something cool, that's what sells the dream." Not sure how I feel about that quote.  Of course I'm all for kids dreaming, who isn't?  But exactly which dream is he trying to sell?  I'm sure the company's all about exploration, but they're main goal has to be profit, and it just seems a little wrong to be selling kids the dream of getting in a submarine, when they're planning to charge $250,000 per trip.