Then, there is the student of maritime 

 history who will find excellent documenta- 

 tion of the early bathyscaphs and two or 

 three accounts of the later vehicles but little 

 at all on the techniques and design in the 

 field at large. Reference is made later in this 

 chapter to documentation within the field of 

 deep submergence. It is sufficient to note 

 that in terms of documentation the full-scale, 

 peaceful invasion of the ocean in the last 

 score of years was and remains almost invisi- 

 ble. 



This is not to infer that the manned sub- 

 mersible is merely a historical curiosity. Doc- 

 umenting the ways of deep submergence 

 benefits not only the historian but potential 

 users and designers as well. If one is to use a 

 present capability or improve it and at the 

 same time avoid reinventing the wheel, it is 

 obvious that one must know the stage to 

 which it has advanced. In manned submers- 

 ibles the "state-of-the-art" is most difficult to 

 measure. For every question there are al- 

 most as many answers as there are submers- 

 ibles. One might ask, "of what are they 

 built?" The answer is steel, aluminum, plas- 

 tic, glass and wood. "How deep can they 

 dive?" From 150 to 36,000 feet. "How long 

 can they stay under?" From 6 hours to 6 

 weeks. In short, to find the state-of-the-art, 

 one must look at the overall field. Where one 

 vehicle is lacking, another is not and where 

 one cannot perform a particular task as well 

 as another, it might very well outperform its 

 rival in a different job. Canvassing the entire 

 field to define each vehicle's capabilities en- 

 tails a world-wide search, which few have the 

 time or funds to pursue. 



It is to help solve these problems that this 

 book is written. It is an examination, analy- 

 sis and synthesis of the last 26 years during 

 which over 100 deep- and shallow-diving sub- 

 mersibles have been constructed and oper- 

 ated in many parts of the world. Within the 

 past year (1973-1974) utilization and con- 

 struction have literally skyrocketed follow- 

 ing a 3-year period during which submers- 

 ibles were, in fact, becoming historical curi- 

 osities. 



At this point in time it would seem appro- 

 priate, therefore, to see where we've been, 

 how well we've done and where we are. 



The future of manned submersibles is not 



discussed beyond a description of vehicles 

 now under construction or about to be built. 

 Not that the future looks dim; on the con- 

 trary, it looks fantastic. But it looked fantas- 

 tic once before and then fell on its face. 

 Predicting or even speculating on the course 

 of future events in this area is a difficult 

 proposition. For example, while gathering 

 data for this book, a visit was made to Perry 

 Submarine Builders in March 1973. At that 

 time the Perry company had just released a 

 good number of its employees and was re- 

 trenching owing to lack of business. The 

 future, for Perry at least, looked rather 

 bleak. On a subsequent visit in April 1974, 

 the Perry workshops were a beehive of activ- 

 ity, and negotiations were underway to relo- 

 cate and construct facilities that could han- 

 dle the incredible volume of new business. 



So, predictions on the future will be left to 

 the more courageous. Also omitted is any 

 effort to predict the application of new mate- 

 rials, components, instruments or power sup- 

 plies. What has been and is being done in 

 manned submersibles constitutes the pri- 

 mary subject matter of this work. 



As one could anticipate, there are some 

 shades of gray, and they color vehicles whose 

 construction was started (e.g., ARGYRO- 

 JSETE. DEEPSTAR 20000) but halted before 

 completion. Such vehicles are included be- 

 cause they are a part of history and repre- 

 sent the thoughts of various deep submer- 

 gence participants at that time. So, in the 

 engineer's jargon, credentials to this book 

 are simply that steel has been cut. 



There are other benefits to be gained in 

 looking backwards, if we look to the periph- 

 ery as well; the periphery being the activi- 

 ties or operational methods of others and 

 their approach to submersible diving. In this 

 respect the subject of safety and emergency 

 devices comes to mind. Chapter 14 relates at 

 some length the devices and equipment car- 

 ried on individual submersibles to avoid and 

 to respond to emergencies. This listing is not 

 presented with the inferred message that 

 the submersible operator "must" have all of 

 these provisions if he is to operate safely. It 

 is given instead, as something to be consid- 

 ered. A requirement for distress rockets, ra- 

 dio homing beacons and the like may be 

 overreacting for the submersible working in 



