Jacques PiccardBorn 28 Jul 1922; died 1 Nov 2008 at age 86.Jacques-Ernest-Jean Piccard was a Swiss oceanic engineer, economist and physicist who assisted his father, Auguste Piccard, design bathyscaphes for deep-sea exploration, including the Trieste, in which he dived with his father, in 1953, to 10,168-ft (3,099-m) depth, off the Italian island of Ponza. Jacques (with U.S. Navy Lt. Don Walsh) took the Trieste on an ocean dive in the Marianas Trench on 23 Jan 1960, setting the world depth record at 35,810-ft (10,916-m). From the early 1960s, he also designed four mesoscaphes for exploration at middle depths. The first of these, the Auguste Piccard, was a 40-passenger tourist vessel operating during the 1964 Swiss National Exhibition in Lausanne, atmostly modest depths (300-ft, 90-m) in Lake Geneva. It was capable of 2,000-ft (600-m) dives. In 1969, he travelled with the Gulf Stream flowin the mesoscaphe Ben Franklin.« |
