It鈥檚 about to get ugly out there. In May, California that it would close 70 of its 279 state parks this month鈥攊ncluding the popular Monterey surf break at and the 370 bolted climbing routes at , in the Santa Cruz Mountains鈥攖o accommodate $22 million in budget cuts. Which raises an obvious question: What happens to those beaches, forests, and lakes?

So far, heroic local efforts have staved off many closures. The , a non-profit conservation group based in Los Altos, committed $250,000 to keep Castle Rock open for the year. For at least the next five years, the non-profit will operate in Sonoma County. Meanwhile, the has taken over operations at the popular and parks in Marin County. At press time, the number of parks on the chopping block had fallen to 54.

But here鈥檚 the thing: those efforts amount to thumbs in a levee with a hurricane approaching. With $1.3 billion in deferred听maintenance projects statewide and no indication that public funding will return anytime soon, the way California鈥檚 government manages public land may have to be completely transformed.

鈥淭he whole structure was built up at a time and around a model that no longer听exists,鈥� says Eric Mart, founder and president of , a private Palo Alto鈥揵ased company that operates park concessions throughout the West. The old model requires a steady stream of money from the state鈥檚 general fund, which originally was dispensed to the parks to provide a public good. But starting in the early '90s, the state began to chip away at the听general-fund money designated to cover park operating costs. The cuts intensified during the recent recession, and today California鈥檚 parks rely on general-fund money for just 30 percent of their total operating costs鈥攄own from 90 percent three decades ago. Other states face similar听challenges: Utah,听Georgia, Arizona, and New Jersey are scrapping to find the cash to keep their parks open. These states may also initiate closures or, more likely, turn over more park operations to private, for-profit companies.听

It鈥檚 a controversial strategy, despite the fact that private businesses are already major revenue generators in many parks. Anytime a rafting or climbing outfitter leads trips in a state park, it pays the government a fee to do business. But as pay-to-play operations expand, the very definition of a state park鈥攍and given to the public for free recreation鈥攃ould change. 鈥淭he concern we have is that as the governor privatizes parks, is this just a giveaway to corporations or campaign contributors?鈥� wonders Jeff Tittel, director of the of the Sierra Club. Tittel worries that the public could find recreation听access limited by exorbitant fees or听partial closures for the sake of cash-generating deals. (Think weddings or corporate retreats.)听

spokesman Roy Stearns insists that the concerns are unwarranted. 鈥淲e鈥檙e not going to be renaming any state parks after corporations,鈥� he says. And according to Warren Meyer, president of Phoenix-based , which operates park concessions, outsourcing could help state parks avoid unnecessarily high overhead, such as paying law-enforcement-trained employees to maintain facilities. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not privatization so much as it鈥檚 a division of听labor,鈥� Meyer says. After all, who cares whether the toilets are cleaned by a rent-a-ranger or a state park employee?

Still, to keep the gates open, California is considering a heftier privatization听option, one that includes leasing management of operations鈥攅verything from lodging to fee collection鈥攆or at least 21 of its parks. This could clear the way for more for-profits to control the parks鈥� day-to-day business. And while a private company may be good at managing a piece of land, its priority will always be the bottom line.

听鈥淪tate parks are an important public good,鈥� says Dan Jacobson, legislative director of the advocacy group . 鈥淎lthough people who are buying the parks may have every intention of maintaining that, we鈥檙e going down a path that could be trouble later on.鈥�

Unless public funding magically returns or the state parks find non-profit partners that don鈥檛 care about turning a buck, some form of privatization seems inevitable. As Meyer puts it, 鈥淭he alternative is a closed park. It鈥檚 really hard to imagine an outcome being much worse than that.鈥澨�

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It was a perfect spring day to be out on San Francisco Bay, but Chris Welsh, a burly six-foot-three competitive sailor, was cooped up inside a dimly lit workshop, tinkering with a one-man submarine that looked like a boxy glider with stubby wings. The shop, perched above a wharf at Point Richmond, is the home of Hawkes Ocean Technologies. The ship, the Virgin Oceanic, is the result of a collaboration between Welsh (who will pilot the sub), the British engineer Graham Hawkes, and Sir Richard Branson. They鈥檝e got high鈥攐r, rather, low鈥攈opes for their project.

Richard Branson (right) with Chris Welsh atop the Virgin Oceanic.

Richard Branson (right) with Chris Welsh atop the Virgin Oceanic.

Director and explorer James Cameron

Director and explorer James Cameron

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鈥淚t鈥檚 not built for speed,鈥� says Welsh, 48. 鈥淚t鈥檚 built for depth.鈥�

Specifically, the Virgin Oceanic is designed to reach 36,000 feet鈥攖he bottom of the ocean. And Welsh isn鈥檛 alone in his quest.

This summer, three crews are on separate missions to build the next big thing in ocean exploration: a manned submarine that can scoot around the Mariana Trench, the deepest place on the planet. In addition to Welsh鈥檚 Virgin team, Avatar director James Cameron is financing a sub, and Florida-based Triton Submarines is trying to produce a commercial model, the Triton 36,000, that can take clients to earth鈥檚 final frontier for as much as $250,000 a head.

A crew has been to the trench before, but not since 1960. That鈥檚 when Swiss oceanographer and engineer Jacques Piccard, along with 28-year-old U.S. Navy lieutenant Don Walsh, piloted a homemade, 150-ton steel bubble called the Trieste to the floor of the trench. Maybe it鈥檚 because he鈥檚 the only man alive today who鈥檚 been there, but Walsh, now 79 and the honorary president of the Manhattan-based Explorers Club, doesn鈥檛 see the point. 鈥淯sually, if there鈥檚 a race, it implies some kind of prize,鈥� he says dismissively. 鈥淲hat鈥檚 anyone going to win, the right to be second?鈥�

But there are broader implications here. These new submarines are as different from the Trieste as a stealth fighter is from a hot-air balloon. The Trieste operated in the manner of most deep-sea submersibles: loaded with weights that were later jettisoned and equipped with flotation devices, it traveled mainly in two directions鈥攄own and then up. Though it had thrusters that allowed for horizontal movement, Walsh and Piccard spent their 20 minutes at the bottom in one spot, surrounded by their own silt cloud, before surfacing with a cracked viewing window. The next generation of explorers hopes to have a look around.

While no single technological breakthrough is rekindling our interest in exploring the Mariana Trench, a series of incremental advances鈥攊ncluding pressure-resistant syntactic foam, lightweight lithium batteries, and advanced ceramic viewing ports鈥攈ave led all three groups to the same conclusion: we鈥檙e on the cusp of designing subs that can make regular trips to the depths.

That鈥檚 provided everything goes according to plan. Even the slightest engineering mishap could have dire consequences under deepwater pressures reaching 16,000 pounds per square inch. During 颅laboratory testing, for example, the Virgin Oceanic鈥檚 borosilicate viewing bubble cracked under just 2,200 psi. Hawkes thinks he鈥檚 fixed that problem, which he traced to the ship鈥檚 joints shrinking at different rates. Still, a malfunction like that at the bottom of the ocean could mean instant death for anyone inside.

One man who intends to take that risk is James Cameron.

鈥淚 plan to personally pilot the sub on 颅every other dive,鈥� Cameron told 国产吃瓜黑料 in an e-mail. 鈥淲e鈥檒l have multiple 3-D hi-def cameras, a huge lighting array 鈥� a manipulator arm to take up to 55 pounds of samples, and we鈥檒l be carrying a small ROV, like the ones we used to explore the Titanic and Bismarck, which can fly off the sub.鈥�

The third group in the hunt, a private Florida-based company called Triton, isn鈥檛 run by anybody you鈥檝e heard of. But founder Bruce Jones, a 55-year-old entrepreneur, hopes to capitalize on the competition with Branson and Cameron. Triton鈥檚 marketing materials call it the 鈥渞ace to inner space!鈥�

So who鈥檚 going to get there first? 鈥淒efinitely Chris Welsh and the Branson team,鈥� Cameron readily concedes. Welsh and company plan to water-test the roughly $10 million Virgin Oceanic over the summer. The first dive could happen as soon as August.

Hawkes, 63, began working on the sub, originally called the Challenger, in 2003. As 国产吃瓜黑料 reported last year (see 鈥淛ust Don鈥檛 Call It a Submarine,鈥� May 2010), adventurer Steve Fossett had commissioned the vehicle to make a dive to the trench, but Fossett died in a 2007 private-plane crash before his dream could be realized. Two years ago, Welsh, who made his money in real estate, was told about the sub while visiting Fossett鈥檚 estate to purchase his 125-foot racing catamaran, Cheyenne. After buying both crafts, he partnered with Hawkes and Branson to ease the expense of seeing the sub through to completion. Now the upgraded Virgin Oceanic is poised to make dives to the deepest ocean trenches in the world鈥攍aunched from the deck of the Cheyenne.

Triton has a different goal. CEO Jones envisions a practical, comfortable craft that will plunge a pilot and two passengers to the bottom of the ocean at a stomach-dropping 300 feet per minute. The Triton 36,000, which the company plans to produce and sell for roughly $15 million each, is essentially a seven-foot-wide hollowed-out marble. According to Bill Raggio, the chief technical officer of the glass company Rayotek, which designed Triton鈥檚 hull, glass spheres strengthen rather than buckle under pressure, and, of course, they offer a better view.

But there鈥檚 a hitch: Triton鈥檚 sub hasn鈥檛 been built yet. 鈥淲e鈥檙e talking to a number of first clients because, quite frankly, we don鈥檛 have the money to build one of these on spec,鈥� says Jones, adding that he thinks they鈥檙e more than a year away from a first dive.

The big unknown in the race is actually Cameron, who has been relatively quiet about his plans until now. His sub project began in 2003 with a few sketches but didn鈥檛 gain momentum until 2005. That鈥檚 when Cameron made one of his visits to the Titanic, 12,500 feet down in the North Atlantic, with Ronnie Allum, the Australian engineer who鈥檚 now heading Cameron鈥檚 Deep Challenge team. (Cameron has yet to release the name of his sub.)

The Deep Challenge project is reportedly well under way, and the sub鈥檚 cockpit was recently pressure-tested to 16,000 psi at a Penn State University lab. 鈥淚t passed with flying colors,鈥� Cameron says. 鈥淭he hull was behaving exactly as designed.鈥� The sub is now in the final assembly stage, with more than two dozen people working on it. Sea trials are set for next April.

Cameron says that any footage he captures will be completely divorced from his feature films. 鈥淗owever, if I see a really alien-looking animal,鈥� he writes, 鈥渟omething that looks very much like it … may end up in future Avatar films.鈥� Cameron is no celebrity dabbler: he has a decades-long track record of scientific exploration that includes the documentary films Aliens of the Deep and Ghosts of the Abyss. Among other research goals, he hopes the Deep Challenge sub can visit the deep-ocean fault line that caused the recent tsunami in Japan. 鈥淥ur role is to explore, to image, and to bring back science,鈥� he writes, 鈥渘ot to set records.鈥�

When I visited the Hawkes submarine workshop in early May, Welsh said he was 鈥渁bout two weeks鈥� away from taking the Virgin Oceanic for a test run. As this story went to press, his team still hadn鈥檛 taken the ship down, and he emphasized that they wouldn鈥檛 do so prematurely. 鈥淲e鈥檙e not rolling the dice with our fingers crossed,鈥� he said.

Cameron doesn't appear to be in a hurry, either. “I am talking to Chris Welsh about ways we can cooperate,” he says. “I'd love to film him flying by 36,000 feet down. How cool would that be?”

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