Late last month, James Cameron, who shall be referred to as Jim from here on out, became the first solo aquanaut to reach the deepest part of the earth. It was his seventieth submersible dive, this time in a vessel of his own design. No big deal.
He landed down in the crack of that deep V.
Jim had planned to spend six hours at the bottom, but he was unable to launch the submersible's unmanned lander that contained cameras and baited plastic traps to attract, observe and collect creatures swimming by. He's pissed, and vows to be back. I smell a sequel.
Jim, or a "faulty hydraulics system," bungled the sample collections, but the Deepsea Challenger did manage to grab half a sediment core—a cupful of muddy, watery sludge. Although he caught some flack for not collecting more, half a sediment is, from a DNA sequencing perspective, a very workable sample. Kudos, Cameron. The hero's journey.