French Bathyscaph Program 481 
speed of ultrasonics and their absorption, and so on. The physicist oceanographers also 
intend to measure the speed of deep underwater currents, the existence of which was not 
even suspected before the first dives. 
I feel that now is the time to state that it is definitely out of the question to carry out 
oceanographic research from oceanographic surface ships. Man must penetrate into the 
medium he wants to investigate, since he now has the means of doing so. The oceano- 
graphic ship of the future will have to be submersible and in order to dive below one- 
thousand metres, which is the actual limit for conventional submarines, it will also have to 
be a bathyscaph. But, on the other hand, the study of the sea will only prove a poor invest- 
ment if each country works on its own, without close cooperation with its neighbor. Ocean- 
ography is an international science calling for an international organization. The recent 
International Geophysical Year has already pooled the efforts of a great number of nations 
towards this specific purpose. This effort must be pursued in the future. I sincerely wish 
that the present and future bathyscaphs be designed and operated jointly by all the research 
workers who are interested in oceanography. As a matter of fact this symposium is striking 
proof that any real progress in the matter should spring from international cooperation. That 
is why I wish to thank once more the organizers of this symposium for inviting France to 
present her program concerning bathyscaph. 
DISCUSSION 
M. St. Denis (Institute for Defense Analysis, Washington) 
Man will always try to excel himself and, having gone high, he will try to go higher, or, 
having gone deep, he will try to go deeper; but fortunately in this case there is a bottom to 
things. This idea of breaking records may be sufficient justification for building a bathy- 
scaph, but if one tries to give a scientific reason for going deep, one must ask himself 
what he is to gain thereby. When man goes deep, all he can do at great depths is to look 
and to collect, and it would seem to me that he can see and collect with a lot less complica- 
tion than a bathyscaph by using instruments remotely controlled from the surface. But be 
that as it may, and accepting the author’s viewpoint that it is advantageous to have a bathy- 
scaph to go deep to do certain things, it becomes evident that a manned vehicle is going to 
grow in size because one will want to carry more and more instruments or more and more 
people. And with a growth in size of the bathyscaph there follows a growth in size of the 
float and eventually the vehicle is going to become bigger and bigger and costlier and 
costlier. So one must ask oneself if this trend in size and in cost cannot be reversed or at 
least retarded. It seems that this can, to a large extent, be done, and it can be done by the 
proper choice of materials. Steel, even high-tensile steel, has not the same strength-to- 
weight ratio of, say, aluminum which is slightly superior to it; and titanium is superior to 
aluminum in this respect and fiberglass is superior to both. I have just a simple question 
and that is this: In constructing the bathyscaph, was any thought given to the use of these 
alternate materials, and if so, why were they discarded? 
