Anyone know who these two guys are?
doubledragon
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in Sports Talk
This is not sports related, but I was wondering if any of you know who these two guys are?
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Oh, I'm afraid I'll have to reveal the answer tomorrow, mother just called and she needs help setting up her new smart TV, mother doesn't understand this new technology. Stay right there mother, I'm on the way!
Ok, I'm back, mother lives right up the street from me so I was able to get that done for her rather quickly. Yes, I am always at my desk when mother calls, for I am....the good son.
Anyway, I guess no one has a clue who the two legendary men are in the photograph. That photo was taken at the bottom of the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, over 35,000 feet deep in the ocean, the lowest point on Earth, a place that is pitch dark because light from the surface simply can't reach that far down. It's as close to Earth's core as you can get, and the pressure down there is so intense that it will crush you to death if water leaks into your submersible. A terrifying place, onlya handful of men have had the guts to venture there, these two men were the first to ever do it. They built a special submersible made of thick steel in the shape of a sphere with a thick plexiglass window to look out of. It took hours to reach the bottom, and in the pitch dark abyss around 30,000 feet the plexiglass outer window cracked from the pressure, if the inner wundow had also cracked and water had leaked in they would have been crushed and cut to pieces in an instant, most people would have gotten the hell out of there and aborted when the window cracked, but these two guys had some balls, and decided that they hadn't come this far for nothing and pressed on, risking certain and instant death if that window gave out. They continued down slowly for 5,000 more feet, all the while horrified by the sound of the pressure wreaking havoc on their submersible, until finally they hit the bottom. They stayed in the bottom for just 20 minutes, in the pitch dark abyss and decided not to tempt fate any further, and they slowly ascended back to the top. They had accomplished one of the most amazing feats in human history, and no one attempted to go back down there until James Cameron did it some 50 years later.
On January 23, 1960, Jacques Piccard (top) and a U.S. Navy officer, Lieutenant Don Walsh (bottom), made the first descent ever to the Challenger Deep, nearly 7 miles down in the Mariana Trench, the deepest place known on Earth. It was a frightening trip down, from rough seas into total darkness. At one point, around 30,000 feet deep as they were approaching the deepest point, they heard a loud crack, which turned out to be the Plexiglass in the viewport cracking from the pressure of about 16,000 pounds per square inch.
The name of the submersible was The "Trieste", and you can see the tiny steel sphere they sqeezed into on the bottom of the submersible.
This is what it would have looked like in the pitch dark abyss, over 35,000 feet deep, a terrifying place where the pressure can crush you to mush in seconds if something goes wrong.
You can see how the two men had to cram themselves into the tiny sphere.
Like I said, James Cameron built a special submersible in 2012 and went there, he became obsessed with going there because of the danger of the place, the desolate pitch dark abyss, where the pressure can cut you into pieces. He just had to see it for himself. He made a great documentary about it.
James Cameron's submersible was a horizontal shape with a sphere built into it, they use a sphere because the nature of a thick steel sphere shape can withstand the pressure the best. This is a photo of him at the very bottom, you have to have a light attached to the submersible or you won't be able to see anything from the pitch dark, like I said the Challenger Deep is so far down that light simply can't reach it.
Two legends.
Men do things like this because they want to go where no one else dares to go, to the most terrifying, desolate, dangerous places you can go to and see it with their own eyes, and hopefully live to tell the tale.
I can't believe they kept going after that outer window cracked, I would've gotten the heck out of there and aborted, if that window busted all the way through they would have been ripped apart. They were just obsessed with reaching the bottom, even if it meant dying.
You can see just how deep it is, you could fit Mt. Everest into it and still be 7,000 feet short.
Anyway, I hope everyone enjoyed the story, I love stuff like this, it's fascinating.
"If the inner window had cracked, we would've been instantly dead."
-Don Walsh