Oil spill: James Cameron and EPA meet0
Washington, DC (Global Adventures): After Kevin Costner (Global Adventures reported here), filmmaker James Cameron is joining the battle to control the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Phil Nuytten, president of Vancouver-based Nuytco Research, joined Cameron in Washington, DC to meet with government officials, academics, and scientists from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and discuss potential ways to stop the environmental disaster.

The Canadian born director of movies such as The Abyss, Titanic, and Avatar is considered an expert in the use of underwater vehicles. A few weeks ago, Cameron contacted BP and offered the use of his deep-dive craft. BP already has a small fleet of remote operated vehicles, or ROV?s, that can descent to the ocean floor and monitor the situation. All efforts to use the vehicles to control the oil spill have failed so far.

While Cameron served on a NASA Advisory Board and can draw on experience gained during the development of technology used to shoot documentaries about the Titanic and the German battleship Bismarck, Phil Nuytten has logged thousands of hour's underwater working as a commercial diver and inventor of deep sea equipment.

In 1999, Nytco Research developed a hard shell diving suite called "DeepWorker 2000." The device is rated to submerge 2,000 feet (610 meters) while maintaining an inside pressure of one atmosphere, thus allowing divers to descend and ascent at will without the need for decompression. The units were capable to support submerged divers for up to 12 hours.

The U.S. Navy used a one- atmosphere 'Hardsuit' based on Nuytten's patent to set a world record in 2006 by descending to a depth of 2,000 feet (610 meters). Since, Nuytten and his team have perfected the design of the Exosuit and developed an underwater training program to prepare NASA astronauts for long-term missions in extreme environments. If nothing else emerges, a new blockbuster could rise from the deep.