Cameron would be the first to say that he was inspired by Ballard; that doesn't mean that he is 'pretending' to be him! Ridiculous thing to say.#
Separately from that, if I was the Oceangate guy I'd be keeping my mouth shut right now, particularly in the public domain.
Cameron should be the guy keeping his mouth shut as the guy at Oceangate rightfully said in the Post, he had no connection with that sub or it's construction or that company, he built his own not certified sub, the fact it did not implode does not make him right, Titan went to Titanic more then a few times successfully.
And something surfaced in 2013 where Cameron had some criticism for Ballard because Cameron always takes all the air in the room after Ballard appeared in his 2012 documentary at the Reagan Library but not in the room with many people who likely would not want him there like Nargeolet. Even Ken Marshall was not shy about appearing with recovered memorabilia which you can find everywhere from Olympic.
The only thing Ballard wanted for Titanic was for people to take better images with better technology, and it happened. His paint idea was not a winner but all Cameron ever did was copy what he did. As for Ballard he's a hero today and never seemed more happy as he's out doing what he loves best.
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And here's Cameon in 2013 response to Ballard, who built a sub that was not certified or inspected.
The quickest way to destroy ocean science, James Cameron tells Newsweek, is to take human explorers out of the water.
I know Bob Ballard well and continue to admire and support his efforts. But here’s the problem with his argument: it’s not as if more funding is being made available for ROV (remote operated vehicle) and AUV (automated underwater vehicle) exploration as a result of cutting funding to piloted subs. No money is being freed up by these draconian cuts. Funding is being cut across the board, in the U.S., including for ROV and AUV operations, and deep-ocean science in general. Piloted subs, which are the most expensive to operate, are being cut most aggressively. No kid ever dreamed of growing up to be a robot. But they do dream of being explorers. And inspiring young minds and imaginations is one of the most important things we can be doing if we want a future supply of engineers and scientists insuring our lead in innovation.The issue is not one of robots versus piloted vehicles, it’s one of national will. The U.S. public is not engaged in deep science and exploration. And the quickest way to get even less interest and engagement is to take human explorers out of the vehicles, and have it all done robotically.
My submersible program easily attracted young, brilliant engineers to work exceedingly long hours for low pay because their imaginations were captured by what we were attempting. And the public’s interest in our dives, as measured by the literally billions of website hits, was several orders of magnitude greater than the dives of the very capable Nereus remotely operated vehicle done several years ago at the same deep spot in the Challenger Deep. Very few people outside the marine science community even noticed the historic Nereus dives because no one was inside experiencing it firsthand and returning to tell the story.
The funding for ocean science and exploration is determined by political will, which is an oxymoron because politicians have no will, they only have a need to avoid criticism. They avoid criticism while funding science and exploration only when the public believes this is something good and necessary, and that only happens when the public is engaged and excited by the exploration itself.
I believe the correct approach is combining the strengths of fully autonomous vehicles, remotely operated vehicles, and human-piloted vehicles, into a suite of tools to explore this vast dark territory at the bottom of the world’s oceans. Each type of vehicle provides important and necessary capability. I have personally designed and built fiberoptic tethered ROVs and flown them extensively, at depths down to 5,000 meters, so I am very aware of their capabilities. But they don’t replace actually being there, in situ, in a sub. Contrary to Dr. Ballard’s assertion [that subs are good for fun but not for science], there is significant interest from the science and marine engineering communities in our new technical capabilities, both in the submersible itself and in applying its innovations to other vehicle platforms. I have an ongoing team of engineers currently interfacing with the oceanographic institutions to hand over our new technology, which I consider open source, so that it can benefit other science and exploration programs. Perhaps the greatest contribution of the Deepsea Challenge program will be the advances made in camera and lighting systems, acoustic communications, thrusters, batteries, and flotation technology, all of which can be applied to future vehicle programs. Dr. Ballard himself will no doubt benefit at some point from these advances.
