SECT. 5] 



DEEP SUBMERSIBLES FOR OCEANOGRAPHIC RESEARCH 



509 



obsolescent in terms of the capabilities of modern technology. Their deep draft 

 and blimp shape make them difficult to tow, moor or lift aboard a mother ship. 

 They primarily have the capability of sinking and rising vertically with very 

 limited horizontal maneuverability. These disadvantages can, of course, be 

 partially overcome by a more sophisticated design that would add more 

 propulsion power and retract the cabin into the float to form a single spindle- 

 shaped body. But it seems even more likely that the future trend in deep ships 

 will be to construct them with buoyant and cylindrical hulls obviating the need 

 for any flotation substances such as gasoline, concentrated liquid ammonia or 

 lithium. A sphere, as used in the bathyscaph, is the ideal geometric form for 

 resisting high pressures. A cylindrical hull, however, can be far better organized 

 for habitability, housekeeping needs, and for the operational and scientific 

 equipment. For proper streamlining, a submersible should have a length roughly 

 eight times as great as the diameter. Such a cigar-shape is readily achieved with 

 a cylinder but to achieve it with a sphere one would need several connected in 

 tandem. 



A new term is needed to describe such new submersibles, as these will be an 

 important departure from the bathyscaph principle ; neither can the con- 

 ventional submarine design be extrapolated to resist the abyssal pressures. As 

 the writer has suggested (1959), the term bathynaut (from Greek roots for 

 "deep ship") as contrasted with bathyscaph (from Greek roots meaning "deep 

 boat") would seem appropriate. 



At present (mid-1960) no bathynauts exist. But the Aluminaut (Fig. 7) of 



Fig. 7. Inboard (a) and outboard (b) longitudinal profiles of the proposed 15,000-ft deep 

 submersible, the Aluminaut. 



