Switzerland Deep Sea Diving Bathyscaphe (b/w photo)

The submarine was designed and constructed by Swiss scientist Auguste Piccard and his son Jacques, a deep sea explorer. The crew occupied a small pressure sphere for two men, attached to the underside of the floats and accessed from the deck of the vessel by a vertical tunnel which penetrated the float and ran down to the sphere hatch. Jacques Piccard and his team reached a record depth of 10'911 m in the Mariana Trench on January 23, 1960. Auguste Piccard (1884-1962) was a physicist, inventor and explorer. An interest in ballooning and a curiosity about the upper atmosphere led him to design and construct a spherical, pressurized aluminum gondola which would allow him to ascend to great altitude without requiring a pressure suit in 1930. Piccard and a Belgian engineer reached a record altitude of 15'785 m on May 27, 1931. During this flight, Piccard was able to gather substantial data on the stratosphere. Piccard and a Belgian physicist made a second record-breaking ascent to 16'200 m on August 18, 1932. In the mid-1930s, Piccard's interests shifted when he realized a modification of some of his atmospheric balloon concepts would allow to descend into the deep ocean and he designed a small steel gondola to withstand great external pressure.