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Today, she still looks “futuristic,” but 25 years ago the Trieste took on the challenge of the Challenger Deep and set a record never to be broken. Fittingly, one of her two-man crew was a naval officer.
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Project Nekton, a Navy research project designed to use the manned research vehicle Trieste to Probe the ocean’s deepest depths, was hrst conceived by a small core of forward-looking oceanographers at the Navy Electronics Laboratory (NEL) in San Diego, California. Following a successful series of bathyscaph dives in me Mediterranean during the summer °k sc’ent'sts wished to “flex
me muscles” of the craft in the manner mat would show its real capabilities and its usefulness as a scientific plat- °rm. In 1958, the Trieste was purchased by the U. S. Navy Office of Naval Research and assigned to NEL. *he responsibility for programming, °Perating, and maintaining this unusual craft was vested in the scientific department of this Bureau of Ships facil- “y- Dr. Andreas B. Rechnitzer, participant in the 1957 dive series and an
I wrote this article nearly a quarter °f a century ago when memories of the event were still fresh in my mind. It now seems appropriate that the event should be celebrated and the handful of People who made it happen should be honored on the 25th anniversary of man's deepest exploration of the ocean.
This account has not been edited since it was first written. I resisted this temptation and leave it to the reader to share the enthusiasm of a 28-year-old Heutenant submarine officer who had {he good fortune and honor to help make a little history for the Navy.
°ceanographer, assumed technical command of the bathyscaph for NEL. acques Piccard, son of Auguste Piccard, builder and inventor of the athyscaph, was also at NEL in the capacity of contractor to the Navy to snow Navy military and civilian personnel the intricacies of the “care and ceding” of the strange craft.
The Trieste, which had been purchased from the Piccards in early 1958, ^as unloaded in San Diego in August 58. She was completely disassembled and hardly looked the part of an adVanced tool for science.
This 49-foot vehicle, which looked I a huge sausage with a marshmal- °w hung under it, operated on a prin- ^Ple familiar to every schoolboy. It as nothing more than an underwater . lrnP> though not self-propelled. The arder you looked, the more that you ould see of the analogy. The sausage as die balloon part which furnished , e hft, while the “marshmallow” was e gondola or sphere which carried the payload, the human observers and their instruments. Certain concessions had to be made to the sea, though: The float had to have a shape that would make it seaworthy for towing, and it could not be made of rubberized fabric as its airborne cousins were. Also, the use of a gas such as helium was out as it would be compressed into a small volume far too rapidly to permit dives deeper than a few feet. The outcome was a steel balloon, for strength, filled with aviation gasoline, for buoyancy. The gasoline, “a solid,” would still compress by one-tenth of its total volume on the deep dive because of the water pressure of almost eight tons per square inch. This compression of the gasoline would cause a loss of buoyancy which would have to be compensated for to prevent the craft from becoming so heavy that it would not be able to surface. This problem of maintaining equilibrium was solved by fitting the float with two metal “silos,” each holding eight tons of steel shot. As the craft became heavier, the operator or pilot could release a quantity of shot to maintain a constant rate of descent or to stop altogether. On actual dives, one ton of shot would be dropped for every 3,000 feet of depth. In addition, the float was fitted with a two-way breathing valve which allowed the pressure on the inside and outside of the float to remain equalized at all times. In this way, the float could be constructed of light metal sheets with the only concern being for strength in the seaway.
The sphere, on the other hand, was the only pressure resistant part of the craft. Its walls were from four to six inches thick, depending on the section. This strength would be quite necessary as the total pressure on the sphere would be almost 200,000 tons at 36,000 feet! The sphere was fitted with two plexiglass windows through which the two occupants could view the sights of the underwater world.
And so it was that this weird appearing inner space ship actually was a very practical and a very functional research tool, though I think that few would have agreed with this concept at the beginning.
From the foregoing, it could not be seen that the assembly process would be slow and cumbersome. To complicate matters, the Trieste's umbilical cord, involving a tangled spaghetti ball of wires that were severed for the dismantling, would have to be sorted out and rejoined. The plans were in Italian while the measurements were in the metric system, as were most of the fittings. All of this in the land of English and American standards! Mr. Piccard’s assistant, Giuseppe Buono, an Italian, spoke little or no English and found it very hard to communicate with the American workers. By the use of sign language and a few Italian-Americans, they were able to keep things moving.
In the meantime, Dr. Rechnitzer had his hands full in trying to set up an organization at NEL to operate and care for the bathyscaph. Through the cooperation of Commander, Submarine Flotilla One, in San Diego, he was able to secure two qualified submarine officers to be trained as prospective pilots and two enlisted men who would become part of the handling crew.
These things are never done quickly, though, and it was not until after the Trieste had made her first dive with the U. S. Navy that Dr. Rechnitzer was able to get his help.
This first dive was made on 20 December 1958. It was the Trieste’s 50th dive since her launching in August 1953. The dive was made about four miles west of Point Loma in 900 feet of water. With the exception of a few small mechanical and electrical problems, the dive was a success. This seemingly shallow dive in the Pacific ushered in a new era for our Navy, that of “Inner Space.”
It was soon after this dive that the Trieste was removed from the water for modifications and in the hope that we could get things ready for Project Nekton by the following spring. During the period of drydocking, a new sphere capable of carrying man safely to the greatest depths was under construction in Europe.
Two basic modifications were necessary to prepare the Trieste for the big dive. The first was the installation of a stronger sphere; the existing sphere was designed to go to only 20,000 feet with a generous safety factor. The second limitation was the buoyancy of the float which would become critical because of the compression of the gasoline at the target depth of 36,000 feet. The new sphere from the Krupp Works in Germany would solve the first problem; however, the second was not so easily resolved. It is feasible to employ a fluid that would be even lighter than gasoline such as a petroleum ether. Unfortunately, fluids lighter than gasoline are extremely volatile. This idea was quickly discarded when the safety and logistics aspects were considered. The final result was that the float was lengthened by eight feet through the addition of two cylindrical sections, thus increasing its volume. The minor disadvantages of extra length and shipping weight had to be accepted.
It soon became apparent to us that the new sphere would not be on hand in time for complete installation and testing before the summer of 1959 and that the plans for Project Nekton would not be finished in time for early submission. To accelerate our diving program, it was decided to put the bathyscaph back into the water and to use her for testing and operational training of American personnel until the end of the summer at which time she would again be drydocked for the installation and instrumentation of the new sphere.
By March, the vehicle had been overhauled and tested and was again ready for sea. During this dive series, six dives were made off San Diego from March to June, with the deepest being to 4,100 feet. These local dives gave the bathyscaph crew, scientists, and handlers a chance to become familiar with the vehicle’s characteristics both on the surface and submerged. As a result of these dives, the combined military and civilian crew learned much about how this unusual vehicle would help to push back the last geographic frontier on this planet.
The months of July and August again found the Trieste out of the water undergoing the extensive modification that would make her ready for the assault on the Marianas Trench, the deepest known point in the world ocean.
The float was lengthened, painted, and carefully inspected for flaws. The new sphere was installed and received its cargo of instrumentation. Our faithful old sphere was put aside with care as it still has many good years of service left. We were fortunate during this time to have the counsel of the Trieste's inventor Auguste Piccard, who was visiting his son Jacques, to give us many pointers on the Trieste's modification.
Besides the obvious work being done on the craft itself, a great deal of thought was going into the acquisition of the proper supporting equipment and spare parts for the trip to Guam. Great quantities of shot ballast were ordered along with those special spare parts that would not be found on Guam.
In July, while the Trieste was receiving her “new look,” we completed our Project Nekton proposal and submitted it to Washington for approval and support. Both were not long in coming, and we tentatively set the first part of October as our embarkation date.
After the modification period, we put the bathyscaph back into the water for a short period of testing to make sure all was right before shipping it out.
The 70-foot shallow test dive went by smoothly, and on 15 September, an 800-foot dive was made off Point Loma. A few troubles popped up on this dive, but they were quickly remedied after the craft was drydocked for disassembly prior to shipment.
The Trieste, her spare parts, and supporting equipments, some 350 tons in all, were loaded on board the SS Santa Mariana on the 3 October 1960. Project Nekton had officially started.
Up until the time we left the United States, we had managed to keep our intentions out of the press, not because we did not like or could not use the public relations, but rather we were afraid that we would be a little premature in declaring confidently that we were going to do what no other man had ever done. We have all seen cases in the missile business where performance has fallen way short of intentions. Ideally, we would have kept silent until after the deep dive, but a thing like this is too hard to hide. Word did get out, though, but not until we had made some deeper dives and had broken the world’s depth record.
As I said before, the broad objective of Project Nekton was to dive a manned vehicle to the bottom of the deepest known oceanic trench. The scientific information that we would gather during this dive series would provide valuable data for the scientific community and would be of significant value to future Navy deep operating craft. The more specific objectives of the program were:
- The precise determination of the sound velocity throughout the water column we were exploring
- Determination of the water column’s temperature and salinity structure
- Water current measurements
- Light penetration, visibility, and bioluminescence observations
- Distribution of organisms under observation in the water column and on the sea floor
- Marine geological study of the trench environment
- Engineering tests of equipment at great depths
- Determination of pressure effects on hull polarity
The reasons for selecting Guam for our operations base were obvious in that Apra Harbor was only 200 miles from the Challenger Deep, the deepest known spot in the ocean, and that Guam was a major naval base with complete facilities.
Originally we had planned on having the diving program completed by the end of January 1960; however, because of several operational delays, this was not to be the case even though the deep dive was made fairly close to the planned time. As with any scientific program, it is extremely hard to make any kind of firm schedule until after you have done each progressive step.
Upon the arrival of the Santa Mariana at Ship Repair Facility, Guam, we quickly set about unpacking our equipment and setting up our spaces ashore. The assembly of the Trieste went quickly, and she was ready for her first test dive on 4 November 1959. The 100-foot test dive in the harbor was a success, and we prepared to go out to sea for a deeper dive.
Our plan of attack was to work our way down to the 36,000-foot depth in easy increments. Our first sea dive would only be to about 4,800 feet; however, the crew would stay down for the same length of time as we expected to stay on the deep dive. This endurance test might point up some material failures or hazards that would be unknown in dives of shorter duration. If trouble did appear, we could surface the craft in only 20 minutes. This dive took place on 10 November about two miles outside Apra Harbor in Guam. Jacques Piccard and Andy Rechnitzer stayed on the bottom for four hours, making tests of the craft and scientific observation of the bottom. No problems turned up on this one, and we made preparations for the next step.
On Friday, 13 November, our little task force sortied from Apra Harbor for the next progressive test dive. The destroyer escort USS Lewis (DE-535), acting as our “flagship,” accompanied the Navy tug USS Wandank (ATA-204) which had the Trieste under tow. The little Wandank played a major role in the success of Project Nekton because of the outstanding support given us by her commanding officer and crew.
Our destination on this trip was a point 58 miles southeast of Guam on the slope of the Nero Deep, part of the Marianas Trench. The estimated depth for this dive was 18,000 feet. If this dive were successful, we would bring the world’s depth record back home to the United States. The French Navy currently owned it with a dive to 13,440 feet made by its bathyscaph FNRS-3 (also designed by the Piccards) off Dakar, French West Africa. Needless to say, we were all somewhat pleased at the prospect of beating this record by almost a mile.
The tow went very slowly. The seas Were fairly high, and they tended to stay that way because of the prevailing n°rtheasterly trade winds found in this |lrea this time of year. The average °w'ng speed was something less than °ne-and-one-half knots, quite a bit less flan the four knots we had enjoyed ''’hile operating from San Diego. At ls speed, the wallowing Wandank was place for weak stomachs! All during ne tow we kept an anxious eye on our ’ttle craft. Her 57-foot length and 1.5 °ot freeboard looked even smaller in ese seas. She had developed the bad abtt of nosing into the seas, and we °ndered how much of her delicate
topside equipment would be intact when we arrived at the diving point. This was the Trieste's first real trip out into open seas, and we hoped that nothing would happen to cut our operation short or terminate it forever.
After a fairly sleepless two days, during which the Lewis was forced to circle the Wandank, as the Lewis could not slow any more while operating in such rough seas, we arrived at the diving area early in the morning of 15 November. The weather was calm, and the seas were moderate. A perfect day for record breaking!
The pilot and observer, Piccard and Rechnitzer, joined the handling crew in
Above, the Trieste is readied for the “big” dive, with her escort, the Lewis, in the background. Below, four of the 13-member Nekton team were, from left to right, Lieutenant Larry Shumaker, the author, Dr. Andreas Rechnitzer, and Jacques Piccard.
the small boat and were transported over to the Trieste. The craft was quickly inspected for towing damage. Luck was with us, however, and there was none. The pre-diving checkoff list was gone over, and all items were in order and ready for operation. Andy and Jacques climbed down the narrow entrance tube and entered the sphere, their “home” for the next few hours. Giuseppe Buono closed the heavy door, and they were alone with their thoughts. At 0730, Jacques ordered the ballast tanks flooded, and shortly thereafter, the Trieste slipped out of sight. The Lewis and Wandank moved to about two miles from the diving point. This was one of our safety measures to ensure that the bathyscaph would not come up under one of the big ships when she surfaced. I manned our small 17-foot tender boat and posted myself at the diving point. I had our portable underwater telephone with me with which 1 would maintain communications with the Trieste while she was down. In addition, the Lewis would back me up with her underwater telephone, not to mention her sonar which would be able to track the craft during the initial stages of the dive.
A few minutes after the Trieste submerged, I received a call from Andy reporting that they were at 300 feet, that all was well, and that they were proceeding with the dive. It may seem a little strange to report that they were proceeding with the dive; however, our standard procedure was to make a more complete checkout of instruments, fittings, etc., once we were well clear of the surface and a good rate of descent has been established. A check such as this would be almost impossible on the surface because of the pendulum motion of the bathyscaph’s sphere.
Communications remained clear until 6,000 feet when Andy’s voice began to fade. We really could not expect much more than this as the small boat was rolling quite a bit, thus contributing to the background noise. The same problem was apparently plaguing the Lewis, and she had no luck in talking with the
Trieste either. The telephone and transducer on the bathyscaph were not as sensitive or powerful as we wanted and needed. Earlier in the year, we had asked NEL to build us a better phone which we hoped would reach us soon, at least before the next dive.
From 6,000 feet to the bottom, we were able to “talk” with the Trieste by the use of various manually keyed signals. So many “beeps” meant “all’s well,” “on the bottom,” etc. In this way, those on the surface had a rough idea of what the craft was doing.
After about three hours, we received the signal that the Trieste was on the bottom. The United States now possessed the world’s depth record.
Five hours after she disappeared from sight, the Trieste broke the surface, and a pair of smiling “bathynauts” emerged with the good news that they had reached a depth of 18,600 feet. They had spent more than a half hour on the bottom taking photographs and studying the bottom contours. Our little vehicle had passed its first big test.
The tow back to Guam went by a little more rapidly as we had the prevailing seas astem and success as a morale booster. I do not think that many in the crews of our supporting ships really believed that the Trieste would perform as advertised. Now that we had made believers of them, the future operations would be approached with more enthusiasm.
Once back on board the mother ship, Andy had a rather disturbing report to make. Just before they surfaced, a loud “bang” shook the sphere. He said that his eyes immediately went to the depth gauge, but then realized that even though the Trieste was at 30 feet, there would be no quick escape. Both Jacques and Andy were in the dark as to what had happened. Everything appeared all right as they blew down the entrance tube and let themselves out.
At our base in Guam, we discovered that both of the great joints in the sphere had separated and were leaking. The two great joints were “glued” together with epoxy resin which had apparently failed to remain plastic when the sphere expanded and contracted because of temperature changes. The
They had done it! The author (left) and Jacques Piccard (right), shown on board the Trieste just after the “big” dive, had done it. NEL and ONR had done it. But most important, the U. S. Navy had done it!
only solution was to take the craft out of the water and substitute mechanical bands for the glued joint.
Once out of the water, the modification progressed smoothly, thanks to the good design work of Chief John Michel, our machinery repairman. The work was delayed somewhat by the manufacture of the bands and their holding rings. We used this time to install some new instrumentation which had just arrived on Guam. With this equipment on board, we would be able to collect much of our data automatically on paper graphs and magnetic tape.
On 11 December, the Trieste was put back into the water and fueled. On 14 December, she made a harbor test dive to 100 feet to test the sphere holding bands and the new instrumentation.
The only place that we would have to worry about a leaky joint would be on the surface as it would tend to seat itself under the pressure of the depths. The tests proved successful, and the craft was again readied for sea.
The Wandank took the Trieste in tow on 18 December for the short trip outside the harbor for dive number 63.
The depth would be only 5,700 feet but this would serve to give us enough of a water column to evaluate fully the data that our new instrumentation system would be giving us. The crewmembers on this dive were Jacques Piccard and me.
The dive started at 1045 and was completed by 1335. Unfortunately, a landing was not made on the bottom because of a malfunction of one of the valves that is used to control the craft’s equilibrium. The problem was not serious, and we did accomplish the purpose of the dive. Our instrumentation traces were all good, and we felt ready to go for the next progressive deep dive.
During the holiday period, the Nekton crew kept busy with the preparations for the next dive and with training. During the period 29-30 December, the team personnel made five training dives in Apra Harbor. While the average depth was only 100 feet, the dives were very valuable for
P'lot and team training. Andy Rech- nitzer; Lieutenant Larry Shumaker, the assistant officer in charge; and I were all able to complete our final “solo” dives at this time. We also had a chance to take some of our team members along on these dives for familiarization. The result was a better understanding on their part of the pilot’s problems during a dive.
The start of the new year found the Trieste and her crew ready to tackle the next test dive, a 24,000 footer. The diving point would again be on one of the slopes of the Nero Deep but a little closer to the center of this 31,000 foot abyss.
A few days before we were to leave P°rt, a lucky event happened. Our long awaited underwater telephone arrived from NEL. It was a beauty, and we lost no time in installing it. We did leave the old phone in place as a backup in case the new one did not hve up to expectations.
On 5 January, our little task force °nce again got under way from Apra Harbor. Once clear of the harbor, we headed south, closely paralleling the lee side of Guam. If we stayed fairly close to shore, we could pick up a little speed on the tow as the seas would not be quite so high here.
Early in the morning of 8 January,
We arrived over the diving point. The weather was good for diving, and we gave the word to start the preparations the dive. The team members manned the small boats and headed for the Trieste wallowing at the end of the ITandank's towline. The pilots on this dive would again be Jacques and me. I thought as I climbed on board the craft, “Only one more to go until the big one.” It was still a little dark now, but this was necessary if this lengthy dive were to start and end in daylight, we knew it would be impossible to drop or pick up the tow in darkness, much less expect the crew topside monitoring the Trieste's dive to find us 'f We should come up a few miles from Ihe ships.
The topside inspection showed that Part of our deck had been carried away a°d that our gas release valve had poshly been damaged. In addition, the mtercom phone for talking topside from me sphere was gone; only a bare wire hung where the phone was once mounted. The final blow came when discovered that the actuating assembly for the after flood valve had been Carried away. For a moment, we were aEaid that we could not dive since we c°uld not flood the after ballast tank.
Buono finally said that he would hold it open by hand until the top of the Trieste was underwater, at which time the tank would be completely vented and full of water. This would mean, of course, that he would have to swim off the craft since he could not leave until it had submerged. This takes a brave man when you consider the ever present sharks in these waters. He agreed to this risk, and we went back to work making our pre-diving inspections and checks.
At 0830, after all of the pre-dive procedures had been completed,
Jacques and I shut ourselves into the sphere with the assistance of Buono, and a few moments later, Jacques gave the order to flood the entrance tube.
The tube quickly filled, and we soon heard Buono shut the entrance hatch up in the conning tower. This was done so that we would be able to blow the entrance tube with our own air when we came back to the surface. It would be no fun to have to wait for the people on the surface to come and let us out. Since we had no phone to the conning tower, Buono could not call to inform us that the tube was flooded and that everything was ready for the dive. Instead, he went directly to the forward flood valve and opened it. As soon as this valve was venting, he went aft and manually held the after valve open. We had told him before we closed the door that in case of emergency we would send some “beeps” on the underwater telephone which he could hear topside. If he heard this, he was to shut both flood valves and call- the boats alongside for assistance. This procedure was not needed as all went well, and in a few moments, we felt the rolling of the craft decrease, she took on her characteristic stem down angle, and we headed into the unknown.
Our first stage check at 300 feet showed that our suspicions about the gas valve were correct. It was not operating at all. This meant that if at anytime during the dive we were to drop too much ballast and become light, we could not valve off any gas to become heavy again. We would then return to the surface and have no choice in the matter! That, of course, would be all for this dive as we would not be able to go down again until we had loaded more ballast and the valve had been fixed in port. By careful piloting, we hoped to avoid this situation.
On the other hand, the new telephone was superb! Communications with our small boat and the Lewis, using a similar unit, were loud and very clear. In fact, I had to take the earphones off and turn the volume as low as it would go. It was very comforting to know that we could now talk clearly to the outside world.
The time passed quickly in the sphere. We kept busy with the dive taking data and communicating with the surface. All seemed to be going well, as I was recording some data into our tape recorder, when both Jacques and I heard sharp noises. The depth was 20,000 feet. Jacques said, “Those were implosions, but from what?” I turned off all the noisy equipments, and we listened. The instruments showed that our rate of descent was still the same; at least we had not ruptured the float. We checked out one by one the various things that might have gone wrong; however, everything seemed to be all right. We continued the dive; we would find the cause when we surfaced. After I found my voice again, I entered more data on the tape recorder.
One thing I noticed outside as we descended was the real lack of bioluminescence throughout the dive. On dives off San Diego, we had seen a great deal of this underwater “snow,” billions of twinkling little animal lights, a rare sight that defied description.
About 1,000 feet from the bottom, we turned on our fathometer and started to watch for the bottom trace. We had found that it was wise to tum it on long before we expected to see the bottom, as our bottom charts were not good enough to preclude the possibility of landing on an uncharted hill or mountain. We waited and waited when, suddenly, at only 40 feet, the bottom appeared on the paper as a faint trace. At the speed we were going, there was no time for a gentle landing. Jacques started dropping ballast from both shot tubs in an effort to stop us before we hit bottom too hard. A hard landing in the bottom might trap us in the sticky ooze. The Trieste finally stopped descending 12 feet from the bottom and then started to rise. As you may have guessed, we could do nothing about it now. With no gas valve to kill our buoyancy, we were now on our way to the surface whether we liked it or not. Our depth at the time of the “pullout” was 24,000 feet. We had been deeper than any man and had set another new depth mark.
Actually, the objective of the dive had been achieved. The craft had functioned perfectly down to 4,000 fathoms. The only real failures had occurred as the result of the towing, not
Looking Backwards at the Future
The Trieste joined the Navy in 1958 and was retired at San Diego in the summer of 1964. She was ten years old, having operated five years with the Piccards in the Mediterranean. Her replacement was the bathyscaph Trieste II, an improved design, but one built on the concepts of the first Trieste.
The Navy operated Trieste II until May 1984 when she too was retired at San Diego. By this time, the U. S. Navy had operated bathyscaphs continuously for 25 years. This was the last organization in the world to operate this type of submersible. The advent of new construction materials and design techniques had made these “underwater balloons” obsolete.
But what happened in the 25 years since Trieste made her record dive in the Challenger Deep? In 1960, there were perhaps no more than three to four operational deep submergence vehicles (DSVs) in the world. One of these was another bathyscaph, the French Navy’s FNRS 3, which like Trieste was built in the 1950s. The work of these two deepdiving vehicles focused world attention on the possibilities of putting a working man into the deepest parts of the world ocean. While the ability to take man’s trained mind and eyes into the sea was not new (divers had been doing it for years), the idea of going beyond a few hundred feet was revolutionary at that time.
In the 1960s, a wide variety of submersibles were developed by industry, governments, and research organizations. In the United States and abroad, small submersible designs were quickly developed to capture a market perceived but one which never fully materialized. In the United States, this rush to development was led by many of the large aerospace companies. They saw this as a means of using their high-technology capabilities to penetrate markets in the new ocean industry. Most of these efforts, however, were eventual failures, not of design, but for lack of application of the completed product.
This did not mean there was no progress. In 1961, the French Navy’s new bathyscaph Archimede was put into service, replacing the venerable FNRS 3, and used until the late 1970s. In 1962, she made a dive to 31,000 feet in the Kuril Trench near Japan. A year later, the Trieste, in her last operational mission, was instrumental in exploring and sampling the wreckage of the lost nuclear submarine Thresher (SSN- 593) in a site off Boston. In 1964, the Trieste II returned to the Thresher's position where she completed her study of the undersea disaster.
As a result of research conducted by the two Trieste vehicles and work done on the sunken nuclear submarine Thresher site, the Navy established major new programs for deep submergence systems engineering and development. A Deep Submergence Systems Project Office was established within the Navy Material Command with corresponding policy, management, and technical offices in other Navy agencies. The proposal to establish a dedicated Navy command for deep submergence and advanced diver systems was approved, creating the Submarine Development Group One at San Diego.
At the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), the Navy-owned but WHOI operated deep submersible vehicle Alvin was put into service in 1964. This was the first submersible fully dedicated to marine science.
During the 1960s, nearly 70 deep submersibles were built and put into service. By the end of the decade, the offshore oil and gas industry, especially in the North Sea, had begun to use DSVs for exploration and production activities.
In the 1970s, this developmental trend continued, but it was slowing. In 1973, the Alvin was completely rebuilt. A titanium hull was installed to better than double her operating depth from 6,000 feet to 12,000 feet, the average depth of the world ocean. With this new capability, the Alvin achieved even greater fame in helping to prove the theory of seafloor crustal spreading. This work along deep ocean plate boundaries also led to the discovery of previously unknown forms of marine life at such great depths.
In the 1970s, major advances were made in deep submersible design concepts, though. Especially noteworthy were the development and application of massive plastic and glass structures to submersible hull construction. While the use of glass technology provided as many problems as it solved, planners found operational application for the use of acrylic plastics as large viewports and hemispheric end caps on DSV hulls as well as for entire spherical pressure hulls. It was quite a jump in only ten years from the small, one-eyed, win-
through any failure in the craft’s design. Of course, we were sorry that we did not get a look or even some pictures of the bottom, but then we did have some fine data on our pen recorders of the cross section of the water column through which we had passed.
Communications had been quite good, and during the times that we were not able to communicate by voice, we used the “beeps” with complete success.
As soon as we were back on the surface, Jacques emptied the entrance tube and went topside to find out what had caused the noise, while I set about securing the equipment in the sphere for the tow back home. When I had finally joined him perched on the conning tower, he pointed out the “noisy culprits” to me. One of our portable running lights had mistakenly been left on board and had failed under the pressure of 8,800 pounds per square inch. The other item was a pipe stanchion that had recently been installed up forward for additional safety. After installation, we had forgotten to check it for compensating holes. It had been compressed into a flat bar—a vivid reminder to always double check all work, no matter how minor it may seem. In any case, no real harm had been done, and with minimum of repairs, we would be ready for the final goal of Project Nekton.
The tow home, once again, seemed to be a lot faster than going out—a state of mind, I guess. We were particularly happy that the Trieste had performed so well up to this point, a tribute to the engineering genius of Auguste Piccard.
Once in port, we decided that if we increased our efforts we would be ready to go again in about ten days. Nekton would be finished by the end of January, almost right on the schedule as we had originally planned it.
We had a couple of important “fixes” to make. The first was to put a fathometer transducer on the craft that was designed to work with the model of fathometer that we had on board. It was this mismatch that probably caused the bottom to “take us by surprise” on the last dive. We did not
By Don Walsh
dow of the Trieste to the “100% window” of an acrylichulled DSV.
In the mid-1970s, the tethered, unmanned remotely oper- uted vehicle (ROV) evolved into an operational reality, assuming tasks previously done by unmanned submersibles and divers (at shallower depths). The ROVs still kept the trained uund and eyes in the “loop,” but the man was now in front °f a TV screen on board a mother ship with the submersible helow, being commanded via an umbilical cord to the surface ship. The ROV made sense, filling a void in undersea work systems because it cost less, did not need to be man-rated, and could be used where a man might be at risk.
From 1975 to 1984, the number of ROVs in the world increased from 17 to 634. Most of their employment was for undersea gas and oil development.
By the end of the 1970s, the Navy owned six operational submersibles: two deep submergence rescue vehicles ©SRVs); two sister DSVs (the Sea Cliff and the Turtle)-, the nuclear-powered DSV, NR-1; and the Alvin.
Another three experimental submersibles were built as well by Navy research and development laboratories for testing advanced design concepts, though none ever became fully °Perational.
At the end of that decade, new DSV developments were limited to a handful of new deep submersibles. The world Population stood at 105, with the majority being working submersibles for oil and gas activities.
In the 1980s, only a few manned submersibles have been constructed; however, real progress has been made in ROV design modification and construction for more advanced applications. For example, the Navy’s Sea Cliff and Turtle were uPgraded to increase their depth capabilities. The Sea Cliff Was given a 20,000-foot depth capability, while the Turtle Was now rated for 10,000 feet. The French Government completed the Nautile (SM-97) in 1984, giving this new DSV a 20,000-foot capability. At the same time, the Japanese Government is designing a DSV for 20,000-foot dives, and the Soviet Union is planning a similar project. Both of these sub- rrrersibles should be operational by the end of the decade.
In new developments, the acrylic hulled, one-man Deep
Rover DSV was completed in mid-1984 by the Deep Ocean Technology Company in the United States. It is capable of diving to about 3,000 feet with a safety factor of five.
Today, submersible engineering and equipment support requirements are well developed and understood. More than 16 nations have about 129 operational DSVs available for a variety of deep ocean applications, though none can dive deeper than 20,000 feet. At this depth capability, scientists can explore 98% of the seafloor. Viewed from this context, efforts to reach depth capabilities of 20,000 to 36,000 feet, the depth range of the remaining 2% of the seafloor, do not appear as a very good tradeoff of DSV costs versus depth capability.
There is no question as to whether there is a future for man in the sea. However, future emphasis on which techniques he will use—whether they be diving, DSVs, or ROV— will change over time. This is the expected nature and history of technological evolution.
It was exciting to be one of the world’s first deep submersible pilots. We worked when there was little off-the-shelf equipment to support us. Few of our seniors really understood what we were trying to do (some did not want to know), and most of what we did was done for the first time. We helped “write the book.”
Ironically, after our record-setting dive, we were told that the Trieste's hull was incapable of withstanding pressure at those depths. Fortunately, the Navy’s efforts at technical analysis were slower than our program’s operational progress in the field! However, that hull was never used again in a dive after we returned to the United States. It was put on display with the rest of Trieste in late 1979 at the Washington Navy Yard’s Navy Memorial Museum.
The early Trieste program, with its 13-member Navy military and civilian team, helped contribute significantly to subsequent submersible advancement over the next 25 years, exciting the imagination and demonstrating that man could reach any place within the world ocean. The program also contributed greatly to early system designs and component developments which are found on submersibles today. It was worth our three-and-a-half years of hard work. Besides, we got to set an exploration record that can never be beaten!
Want that to happen again. The other Vvas to completely overhaul the broken §asoline valve. We also removed the °Id underwater telephone and its transducer; the new one had proven itself.
An inch-by-inch inspection of the bathyscaph was made by the crew "'bile Jacques supervised the minor rePairs. Newly charged batteries were ^stalled by Charley Hill, our 60-year- °Id electrician from NEL. John Pflaum, be scientific photographer, checked out bis special cameras and again fitted bent into the sphere. Nothing was left to chance since there could not be such a thing as being too careful.
To commemorate the event, the biembers of the team prepared 500 spe- c'al commemorative envelopes and 48 small U. S. flags to go into the sphere for the seven-mile ride to the bottom. The cachets would go to leading scientific, military, and civilian officials with enough saved out to take care of the many people who were not “leading officials” but without whom there would have been no Project Nekton. The flags were to be presented for institutional uses, such as museums. We also considered the idea of planting a U. S. flag on the bottom in the classical manner of the explorer, but here the engineering problem was too complicated for the amount of time that was available.
The Trieste's white topside received three large painted panels of orange high-visibility paint. On all dives up to this point, she had always come up near the surface ships; however, we did not want to take any chances on not being seen while 200 miles from nearest land. If we were to get sent away from the diving point by some unknown deep current, we would want to be as visible as possible, once back on the surface.
We also took on board two small emergency radio transmitters to be used for homing and communications with the searching aircraft and ships. These were in addition to the “walkie-talkie” that we had always carried for routine communications.
By 19 January, the Trieste was in all respects ready for her big test. Before securing the craft for sea, 20 pounds of desiccant were stuffed into various nooks and crannies in the sphere’s crowded interior. It would be needed to prevent moisture damage from high humidity during the tow out to the diving site.
At 1400 on Tuesday, 19 January 1960, the Wandank cleared Orote Point at the harbor mouth, trailing her precious tow behind her. Destination: the Challenger Deep, 200 miles southwest of Guam. As soon as the Trieste had settled down at the end of the towing wire, the Lewis proceeded on ahead to the vicinity of the diving point. Jacques rode the Wandank while I was on board the Lewis.
The Lewis arrived at the diving site at 0700 on the morning of 20 January and prepared to start her search for the bottom of the deep. The geographical position was known; all that remained was to correlate this information with the Lewis's navigational plot. Finding an unseen “valley,” whose floor was only one mile wide and four miles long, was no easy task 200 miles from the nearest landmark. In addition, the ship’s fathometer was not designed to reach into such great depths. The sounding method that would be used by Andy Rechnitzer and the Lewis's navigation team would be to drop explosive charges over the side and then time the interval between the explosion and its echo.
Later in the morning, we received a terse message from the Wandank saying that the towing wire had broken, and they were maneuvering to recover the Trieste. If permanent damages were found on recovery, we would be finished for this try. Luckily, Lieutenant Bill Cooley’s Wandank crew and our own personnel were able to put over a jury rig towing arrangement and get the Trieste t^ck under tow by 1300 that day. Larry Shumaker reported over the radio that he had been on board and that no topside damage could be seen on the craft. We were still in the game, even though the Wandank's towing speed had to be greatly reduced for safety. The Trieste finally arrived in the diving area on the morning of 21 January, but we were not ready for diving as we had not yet finished our plot of the deep. We certainly did not want to miss the center of the deep because of a poor position.
By that afternoon, the Lewis had used over 300 explosive charges, and we still were not sure that we had the exact spot cold. We sent a message to Guam asking that a crash boat or harbor tug meet us at sea with a load of explosives with which to complete our survey. By this time, it was too late to rendezvous with the small craft, and we accordingly sent a message to Guam postponing the dive until the morning of 23 January. This extra day would give us plenty of time to finish the survey.
By 1800 on 22 January, the Lewis had met a large harbor tug, a YTB, 50 miles off Guam and had received nearly 1,400 pounds of explosives. The highline transfer from the YTB to the destroyer escort in fairly rough seas posed some interesting problems for the deck forces of both ships.
The Lewis was back at work at the diving area by midnight. All of us hoped that we would have the spot pinpointed by sunup next morning.
By morning, the Lewis was able to report to Guam, “Deepest point located.” The Lewis had the Wandank fall in astern of her, and in single file the ships steamed up the axis of the deep. At the exact center of the abyss, Andy ordered a dye marker dropped over the stem of the Lewis. With the stain in the water, the Wandank could come right up and drop her tow in it knowing that the Trieste would then be located right over the spot. All that remained now was for the Trieste's crew to travel seven miles straight down to hit that mile wide spot.
The sea was now rough enough that we were unable to launch our small tender boat and consequently had to use the Wandank’s rubber boat for this job. While the rubber boat did a thorough job of wetting down its occupants, it was much easier and safer to handle alongside the ships and the Trieste.
In spite of the high waves, we were able to board the Trieste and prepare her for the dive. By 0800, Jacques and I had squeezed ourselves into our 17 cubic foot “office,” and by 0823, we had disappeared from the surface of the ocean.
The five-hour trip to the bottom followed the same routine that we had used on the previous dives. The only unplanned incident happened at 30,000 feet when the large plastic viewing window at the back of the entrance tube cracked with a bang. This window is not subjected to pressure during the dive as the entrance tube is full of water and is fully pressure compensated. When the bathyscaph is on the surface, the window is 18 feet below the waterline, and if it were broken, we would not be able to blow the water out of the tube to let ourselves out. As it turned out, the window was only cracked, and by carefully admitting the air to the tube, we were able to empty it without causing the window any further strain. The reason for the failure is still being studied.
Once we had landed on the bottom, we started taking measurements and pictures. The photographic efforts were not too successful because of the large cloud of material that had been stirred up by our landing. The major “find” was the conventional looking flatfish that was lying on the bottom as we landed. Soon after the landing, he swam off into the cloud. To know that this kind of life could exist at a pressure of eight tons per square inch was exciting, indeed!
Jacques and I decided, after 20 minutes, that we had better start for the surface. We wanted to be back up in daylight, especially if a patch were to be needed for the broken window.
The trip to the surface was rapid, taking only three-and-one-half hours.
At 1658, we bobbed to the surface about two miles from the diving point. Our concern about being set off by many miles was unfounded.
The limp little rubber boat picked Jacques and me up, and we were put on board with the handling crew for connecting up the tow. We went back to the Lewis for ceremonies to celebrate the event. The first thing that we did was to commit a plastic encased U. S. flag to the deep to “claim” the Challenger Deep for the United States.
As soon as the Wandank had the Trieste safely in tow, the Lewis departed the area at high speed for Guam. We had several press people on board who had to get back to file their stories. We arrived in Guam the next morning. The poor Wandank, limited at times to towing speeds of only one knot, did not arrive for another five days!
Thus, Project Nekton came to a successful conclusion. We had proved that the U. S. Navy now possessed the capability to explore the depths of the ocean anywhere in the world. Now, no part of the ocean’s bottom could be inviolate to man’s curious eyes.
A 1954 graduate of the Naval Academy and holding a master’s of science degree and a doctorate in physical oceanography as well as a master’s degree in political science, Don Walsh served in the Navy for 23 years. He has been involved in diving operations with 11 submersible vehicles and is the author of 85 articles, papers, and books on ocean- related topics. As a civilian, he served at the University of Southern California as the first Director of the Institute of Marine and Coastal Studies and as a professor of ocean engineering.
He is now President of International Maritime Incorporated, a consulting firm he founded in 1976.