ports today except for the Japanese submers- 

 ible KIROSHIO II. 



Other technological areas where the 

 FNRS-2 pioneered was in the pressure com- 

 pensation of its batteries and the design of 

 thru-hull electrical penetrations; both are 

 discussed more fully in Chapter 6. As he 

 explained in In Balloon and Bathyscaphe 

 (3), Piccard did not consider deep diving a 

 particularly dangerous undertaking as long 

 as one complied with the applicable laws of 

 physics and added a margin for safety. Con- 

 sider, for example, the pressure sphere 

 which had an operating depth of 2.5 miles 

 and a collapse depth of 10 miles, and the 

 plastic viewports which would only deform 

 permanently at a computed ocean depth of 

 18^/5 miles. There are so many areas in which 

 the innovative Swiss physicist laid the 

 groundwork for future deep submergence ve- 

 hicles that a mere listing would not do jus- 

 tice to his accomplishments. Not only did he 

 solve a great many technical problems, but 

 he also identified those areas where addi- 

 tional research was required. More impor- 

 tantly, his efforts and subsequent narratives 

 served to galvanize the marine engineering 

 community into thinking of the problems of 

 deep submergence and the oceanographer 

 into thinking of its benefits. For this, con- 

 temporary participants of deep submergence 

 are indebted. 



On the 26th of October 1948, FNRS-2 made 

 its first test dive to 84 feet off Cape Verde 

 with Piccard and French biologist Dr. Theo- 

 dore Monod aboard. The program called for 

 an unmanned dive, which was subsequently 

 conducted to 4,544 feet on the 3rd of Novem- 

 ber, and, when FNRS-2 surfaced, Piccard 

 met with a problem neither he nor his suc- 

 cessors have solved successfully: Heavy 

 weather. With seas too high for its support 

 ship SCALDIS to retrieve it, the float was 

 emptied of gasoline after a few hours of 

 ponderous towing and replaced with carbon 

 dioxide, but even so, the float, not designed 

 for towing, was so damaged that further 

 diving was precluded. A few weeks earlier, 

 Otis Barton took an improved bathysphere 

 called BENTHOSCOPE down to 4,488 feet off 

 Santa Cruz Island, California. 



The French Navy, who lent a great deal of 

 assistance to Piccard in 1948, was presented 



the FNRS-2 in 1950 as an apparent result of 

 disenchantment with bathyscaphs on the 

 part of the Fonds National. At Toulon, the 

 French made several modifications to the 

 newly-designed F^i?S-3; the most important 

 being a new float designed for towing and a 

 chute-like affair leading down to the original 

 pressure sphere within which the occupants 

 could enter or leave the cabin with the vehi- 

 cle in the water. FNRS-3 began diving under 

 the command of Captain George Houot (5) in 

 June 1953 and by February 1954 reached the 

 unprecedented depth of 13,700 feet in the 

 Mediterranean Sea. 



Still undaunted. Professor Piccard, now 

 joined full-time by his son Jacques, pressed 

 on with his concept. With financial aid from 

 the Swiss government and technical assist- 

 ance and grants from Italian industry in the 

 city of Trieste, they once more began their 

 quest for depth in the form of the new bathy- 

 scaph TRIESTE in the spring of 1952. On the 

 first of August 1953 the bathyscaph was 

 launched. 



The diving principles for TRIESTE were 

 identical to those of FNRS-2; the major mod- 

 ifications were in dimensions, capabilities 

 and, particularly, in the float, now designed 

 for surface towing. Specifically, the following 

 modifications took place: 



— The pressure sphere was the same di- 

 mension as that of FNRS-2 but was of 

 forged steel — stronger and more malle- 

 able than cast steel. 

 — Electrical power was from silver-zinc 

 batteries carried in the pressure 

 sphere. 

 — The viewport in the hatch, now on 

 hinges, could be used to view exter- 

 nally owing to installation of a plastic 

 window in the access trunk. (FNRS-2''s 

 hatch viewport was blocked by the ap- 

 paratus holding the hatch in place.) 

 — The float held almost four times as 

 much gasoline (22,600 gal) as FNRS-2, 

 was stronger and was cylindrically 

 shaped with a keel for better towing 

 characteristics. A floodable vertical ac- 

 cess trunk ran through the float to the 

 sphere for ingress/egress to the cabin 

 when TRIESTE was afloat. Tanks fore 

 and aft in the float could be filled with 

 air on the surface to attain greater 

 free-board. 



38 



