Two other submersibles appeared in 1964 

 for reasons different than any so far. ASH- 

 ERAH, a 2-man, 600-ft vehicle (Fig. 3.15), was 

 built by General Dynamics for the Univer- 

 sity of Pennsylvania Museum with grants 

 from the National Geographic Society and 

 the National Science Foundation. Named 

 after the Phoenician sea goddess, ASHERAH 

 would play a major part in mapping ancient 

 Mediterranean shipwreck sites under the di- 

 rection of archeologist George Bass. AV- 

 GUSTE PICCARD (Fig. 3.16), named after 

 the now deceased father of deep submer- 

 gence, was designed by Jacques Piccard and 

 constructed by Giovanola of Switzerland. 

 The 93-ft-long, 2,500-ft-depth submersible 

 was stationed on Lake Geneva (Leman) and 

 conducted daily dives wherein 40 passengers, 

 each with his own viewport, cruised the bot- 

 tom of the 1,000-ft-deep lake. AUGUSTE PIC- 

 CARD was financed by the Swiss National 

 Exposition as a tourist attraction; from 16 

 July 1964 to 17 October 1965 it conducted 

 1,112 dives and introduced over 32,000 pas- 

 sengers to the field of limnology. 



That a market for submersibles did, in fact, 

 exist was demonstrated in 1964 and early 

 1965. Under an arrangement with Cous- 

 teau's OFRS, Westinghouse Corporation's 

 world-wide charter facility brought the DIV- 

 ING SAUCER to California where it carried 



scientists and engineers from government 

 and academia on a total of 132 dives during 

 January-March 1964 and November 1964- 

 April 1965. Working primarily in the canyons 

 off Southern California, the DIVING SAU- 

 CER produced an impressive array of in situ 

 oceanographic data and photographic docu- 

 mentation. The uniqueness of deep diving 

 and its inherent drama received a great deal 

 of attention from the media and trade jour- 

 nals and served as a further catalyst draw- 

 ing attention to hydrospace. The DIVING 

 SAUCER operations were the first long-term, 

 open-ocean series of dives where industry 

 provided the submersible system as a facility 

 for diving scientists. 



OCEANOGRAPHIC CLIMATE OF 

 THE MID-SIXTIES 



Based on the accelerated development of 

 submersibles from 1965 to the present (1975), 

 one must conclude that somewhere between 

 1963 and 1966 the undersea climate brought 

 many companies to the decision to build. Let 

 us examine, from the decision-maker's point 

 of view, the atmosphere which influenced his 

 thoughts in 1965. 



TRIESTE'S record dive to the greatest 

 known ocean depth and the twenty or so 

 follow-on second generation submersibles 

 were obvious proof that no major break- 



Fig 3 14 Reynolds ALUMINAUT underway lo sea Inals oil Connecticut in 1964 (Gen. Dyn Corp.) 



48 



