Jacques Piccard (1922-2008)

image: Wikimedia Commons

Lieutenant Don Walsh, USN, and Jacques Piccard in the bathyscaphe TRIESTE, nearly seven miles deep in the Marianas Trench, 1960.

Jacques Piccard, Scientist Who Explored the Deep Seas, Dies at 86:

Jacques Piccard helped his father invent the bathyscaphe, a vessel that allows people to descend to great depths. On Jan. 23, 1960, he and Lt. Don Walsh of the United States Navy took the vessel, named the Trieste, into the Mariana Trench in the Pacific to a depth of 35,800 feet, nearly seven miles below sea level. It remains the deepest human dive ever.

Biography: Jacques Piccard:

Jacques Ernest Jean Piccard was born July 28, 1922, in Brussels, Belgium. His career as an ocean engineer and explorer began with the aeronautical exploits of his father, Auguste, a physicist who became interested in balloons as a way of studying cosmic rays in the upper atmosphere. In 1931, Auguste reached a record altitude of 50,000 feet in a balloon equipped with the first pressurized cabin, becoming the first person to reach the stratosphere and return safely.