超級(jí)富豪天價(jià)玩具的身后事
????大概14歲時(shí),詹姆斯?卡梅隆就進(jìn)行了他的首次水下任務(wù)。當(dāng)然,下水的不是卡梅隆,而是他的老鼠。他把那只老鼠放在他自制的潛水艇里,然后看著它沉入加拿大尼亞加拉瀑布附近的奇帕瓦河河底。這條河總共只有四五英尺深。那只老鼠活了下來(lái),因此卡梅隆的潛水任務(wù)越做越大、越做越勇。去年,58歲的卡梅隆成為首個(gè)獨(dú)自下潛至太平洋馬里亞納海溝“挑戰(zhàn)者深淵”底部的探險(xiǎn)家。那里是世界海洋的最深處。此后,他做了一件可能更加不同尋常的事情。三月底,他把這個(gè)深潛器和相關(guān)技術(shù)都捐獻(xiàn)給了伍茲霍爾海洋研究所(Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)。這個(gè)私人研究所位于科德角(Cape Cod),卡梅隆將加入該研究所的董事會(huì)和新的機(jī)器人研究團(tuán)隊(duì)。 ????卡梅隆此舉很少見(jiàn)。10年來(lái),前沿探險(xiǎn)主要由私營(yíng)公司進(jìn)行,例如理查德?布蘭森的維珍航空(Virgin Atlantic)和埃倫?穆斯克的太空探索技術(shù)公司(Space X),相關(guān)的設(shè)備和技術(shù)常常是富豪們的玩物,披著神秘和知識(shí)產(chǎn)權(quán)的面紗。富豪們往往不會(huì)把他們的玩具捐贈(zèng)給科研機(jī)構(gòu)。2002年,斯蒂夫?福賽特成為搭乘熱氣球環(huán)游世界的第一人。后來(lái),他把這個(gè)熱氣球吊艙捐贈(zèng)給了美國(guó)航空航天博物館(National Air & Space Museum),一直展出至今。他沒(méi)有把它交給氣象學(xué)家去分解剖析。 ????為了做好深海下潛的準(zhǔn)備,卡梅隆在巴布亞新幾內(nèi)亞的所羅門(mén)群島新不列顛海溝進(jìn)行了海試。之前有關(guān)這條海溝的科學(xué)數(shù)據(jù)如此之少,令他吃驚不已?!拔覀兛偸窃谟懻撎?,”最近他在紐約探險(xiǎn)者俱樂(lè)部(Explorers Club)的一次會(huì)議上說(shuō)?!拔蚁矚g科幻小說(shuō),我覺(jué)得太空也充滿了科幻的感覺(jué)。但在地球的海洋里就存在著這樣一個(gè)外星世界?!笨仿∫荤娨?jiàn)血地指出:‘我們說(shuō),我們已經(jīng)到達(dá)了海底。但這好像是在午夜空降到內(nèi)布拉斯加州的某塊玉米地,拿著手電筒在四周?chē)吡藥讉€(gè)小時(shí),然后就說(shuō)已經(jīng)探索了美國(guó)。我們需要更多信息?!?/p> ????卡梅隆的“深海挑戰(zhàn)者”(Deepsea Challenger)號(hào)深潛器價(jià)值大約1億美元,其中很多都是卡梅隆自掏腰包。這就像是致力于一種在學(xué)術(shù)圈子和公募圈子里幾乎不存在的全新玩意兒。相比之下,科研人員的“阿爾文”(ALVIN)號(hào)深潛器在服役50年后,在2010年退役進(jìn)行改造升級(jí)?!斑@就像是把噴氣發(fā)動(dòng)機(jī)安裝到螺旋槳飛機(jī)上,”伍茲霍爾海洋研究所的國(guó)家深潛設(shè)備主管安迪?鮑文說(shuō)。 |
????When James Cameron was about 14, he embarked on his first underwater mission. Well, not Cameron so much as his mouse. He put it in his homemade submersible and watched it sink to all of four or five feet into Chippawa Creek, in the Canadian suburbs of Niagara Falls. The mouse survived, so the missions got bigger and bolder. Last year, Cameron, 58, became the first-ever solo explorer to touch the bottom of the Pacific Ocean at the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, the deepest surface on Earth. Since then, he has done something possibly more extraordinary: Earlier this week, he donated the submersible and all the related technology to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a private research operation in Cape Cod, where he will also join its Board of Directors and a new robotics team. ????Cameron's move is a rare one. While the frontiers of exploration have been carried out largely in the private sector over the past decade -- Richard Branson'sVirgin Atlantic, Elon Musk's Space X, and the like -- the machines and technologies involved are often billionaire playthings, shrouded in mystery and intellectual property rights. The moneyed moguls themselves have tended to be less than civic-minded with their toys. After Steve Fossett became the first person to circumnavigate the world by balloon, in 2002, he donated his capsule to the National Air & Space Museum, where it has been on display since. He did not give it to meteorologists to dissect. ????In prepping for his deep-sea dive, Cameron did a test run of sorts at the New Britain Trench, in the Solomon Islands of Papua New Guinea. He was amazed at how little scientific data there was on the trench. "We're always talking about space," he said recently at a meeting of the Explorers Club in New York, "and I loved sci-fi and I thought space was it too. But there's an alien world right here on Earth, in the oceans." Cameron drove home the point: "We say we've been to the bottom of the ocean. But that's like parachuting into a cornfield in Nebraska at midnight, walking around for a few hours with a flashlight, and saying you've explored America. We need more." ????Cameron's submersible, the Deepsea Challenger, is valued at around $100 million, much of which Cameron paid for out-of-pocket. It is the kind of devotion to brand-new gadgetry that is virtually nonexistent in academic and publicly funded circles. By contrast, ALVIN, researchers' go-to deep-sea submersible, was decommissioned for a refit in 2010 after five decades in the field. "It's like adding a jet engine to a propeller fleet," said Andy Bowen, Woods Hole's director of its National Deep Submergence Facility. |