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National Geographic : 1960 Apr
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reefs to 210 feet-the working limit for an ex pert with the Aqua-Lung. Below, in the trans parent water, we saw the rich wall of life ex tending beyond our reach; for even the most expert Aqua-Lung diver should descend no more than 300 feet, and to this depth only if he stays no longer than a minute. To explore the virgin depths beyond, a pres sure-resistant shell must surround the diver. But a regular submarine, or a deep-diving bathyscaphe, would be too big and clumsy for intimate reef exploration.* We needed a radi cally new submarine, something small, agile. Continental Shelf Beckons Explorers The time was ripe for such a craft. Free divers were patrolling everywhere in the sea's top layer. And the bathyscaphe was eventu ally to take man down some 37,800 feet 7.2 miles-to the bottom of the oceans' deep est known hole, the Mariana Trench off Guam. But between these extremes lies the richest zone of sea life-teeming, beckoning, unex plored. That region is the continental shelf, the offshore slope of a continent out to the ledge where, at depths of roughly 600 feet, the bottom drops sharply into the deep. "Our baby submarine should be small enough to carry on the Calypso," I said to Andre Laban, Director of our French Under sea Research Center at Marseille. "It should take two men to about a thousand feet and let them stay down six hours. It should be as maneuverable as a free diver, if possible." We were not bound by the forms of any previous submarines. Water trials of various models led us to a flattened sphere as best for our hull shape-two dished halves of three quarter-inch steel. We ordered three hulls. With safety much in our minds, we lowered the first one at sea with no one aboard. To make it sink while empty, we fastened heavy iron ballast to it with 30 feet of chain. As the saucer dipped below the surface, the crane cable parted, and the steel bubble sank to the sea bottom, 3,300 feet down. On our depth sounder we picked up a distinct echo for the hull. We knew that it was intact, be cause there it floated 30 feet off the floor tethered like a balloon to its anchoring ballast. The Calypso has crossed the test site many times in the 18 months since. The hull is still floating down there. We thus became con fident that our thousand-foot dives would have a safety factor of three plus. The Undersea Center also took a fresh look at propulsion possibilities and rejected pro pellers in favor of hydrojets on both sides of the hull, powered by an electric pump. This system simply takes in water and forces it out through two nozzles. There had never been a jet submarine, but only such jets promised the great agility we wanted. Many French and American engineering groups joined to shrink into saucer space the necessary electric motors, pumps, and instru ments. The Committee for Research and Ex ploration of the National Geographic Society, then under Dr. Lyman J. Briggs, provided financial backing for this pioneering venture, and so did Air Liquide Cie. in France and the EDO Foundation in the United States. It took courage to invest money and material in such an unorthodox idea. Last July the diving saucer was far enough along to be christened in Marseille by Mme. Denise Mollard. She is the patient and under standing wife of Jean Mollard, the young elec trical engineer who became our dedicated con structeur, as French Navy people call a ship builder. The first jet submarine was fittingly named Denise. A few days later, when Calypso sailed on a scientific cruise, Denise was loaded in her spe cial garage in the afterhold (opposite). At the last moment, Mollard decided to come along and made a pierhead jump aboard. He worked on the little sub until we reached Puerto Rico, to start diving operations off Punta Aguila on the island's southwest tip. Denise Makes Her Maiden Dive The first day we lower Denise without the crew to weigh her for neutral diving buoyancy. We weigh pilot Albert Falco and engineer Mollard on the Calypso and add them to the calculation. The following day the saucer crew goes down for the first time, hung from the ship by a braided nylon cable that will, in effect, be weightless in water. Before the dive we make a "preflight" check, * For other articles about the bathyscaphe, Captain Cousteau, and the oceanographic research vessel Calypso, see NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC for January, 1960; March, 1958; February, 1956; April and August, 1955; January and July, 1954-The Editor. Saucer, on a Transatlantic Crossing, Rides Snugly in Calypso's Hold A remodeled U. S. Navy mine sweeper, Calypso provides a floating laboratory, work shop, and diving platform for Capt. Jacques-Yves Cousteau's fish men. As Calypso crossed the Atlantic, coiled cables on her main deck at times dragged camera- and flash bearing sleds along the sea bottom, making a pictorial sampling. THOMASJ. ABERCROMBIE
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