On 23 January 1960, the bathyscaphe TRIESTE, with her crew of two, became the first vessel to reach the deepest part of the Earths oceans, the Challenger Deep, in the Mariana Trench, in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Guam. The Swiss-designed, Italian-built, U.S. Navy owned TRIESTE was manned by JACQUES PICCARD, son of the submersible designer Auguste Piccard, and U.S. Navy Lieutenant DON WALSH. The TRIESTE, which was dubbed a bathyscaphe by the Piccards, consisted of a submersible chamber with the crews pressure sphere attached beneath it, which allowed for a free-diving vessel, rather than the traditional bathysphere, which was a pressure sphere that was lowered and raised by a cable attached to a ship. To withstand the enormous pressure of 1.25 metric tons per cm² at the bottom of the Challenger Deep, the spheres walls were made of 5 inch(12.7 cm) thick steel, and it was built with a closed-circuit rebreather system similar to that used in modern spacecraft and spacesuits. Observation of the sea outside the sphere was via a single cone-shaped block of acrylic glass. On their record-setting dive, PICCARD and WALSH reached a depth of around 36,070 feet (10,994 m), where they observed that the ocean floor consisted of a diatomaceous ooze. They also observed a number of small sole and flounder swimming around, proving that at least some forms of vertebrate life can withstand the extreme pressure at the oceans deepest point. Today, the TRIESTE is on display at the National Museum of the U.S. Navy at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C.
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 12:21:11 +0000
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