Top 10 Incredible Facts about Jacques Piccard

Jacques Piccard. Photo by Koen Suyk / Anefo-Wikimedia

Top 10 Incredible Facts about Jacques Piccard

Piccard was a Swiss oceanographer and engineer. He is known for having developed underwater submarines for studying ocean currents. Piccard and Lt. Don Walsh were the first people to explore the deepest known part of the world’s ocean.

Learn more about Jacques Piccard in these top 10 incredible facts.                                                                                                           

1. Jacques Piccard Family is Full of Adventure

He was born on July 28, 1922, in Brussels, Belgium. He was the son of Auguste Piccard, who was himself an adventurer and engineer. His father beat the record for reaching the highest altitude in a balloon between 1931 to 1932.

The Piccard family had the unique distinction of breaking world records for the highest flight and the deepest dive. There is Jules Piccard, a professor of Chemistry, Bertrand Piccard, an aeronaut, balloonist and other family members who have achieved outstanding records.

His father, who had already set altitude records in his balloon, started using the buoyancy technique used in balloons for developing a submersible vehicle, the bathyscaphe.

2. Jacques Started his Career by Teaching

He started his career by teaching economics at the University of Geneva as he continued to help his father improve the bathyscaphe to demonstrate its potential for operating in deep waters.

While teaching, he completed a diploma at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva. Alongside his father, they built three bathyscaphes between 1948 and 1955, which reached record depths of 4,600 feet and 10,000 feet.

He later abandoned economics to collaborate with his father on further improving the bathyscaphe and demonstrating its practicality for exploration and research, and then they collaborated.

3. Jacques Piccard Was Welcomed to the United States to Demonstrate his Bathyscaphe

Lieutenant Don Walsh, USN, and Jacques Piccard in the bathyscaphe TRIESTE. Photo by Archival Photography by Steve Nicklas, NOS, NGS-Wikimedia

Jacques looked for financial help from the U.S Navy, which at that time was exploring various ways of designing submarines for underwater research. He was then welcomed to the U.S. to demonstrate his bathyscaphe, the Trieste.

The U.S. Navy was impressed by his design, bought the vessel and hired Piccard as a consultant. The navy recognized the strategic value of a workable submersible for Submarine salvage and rescue and they began testing Trieste for greater depths.

4. He Was Among the First Humans to Explore the Challenger Deep

The Challenger Deep is the deepest known point of the earth’s seabed, with a depth of 10,902 to 10,929. Piccard and his colleagues planned a more significant challenge, a voyage to the bottom of the sea using the Trieste.

On January 23, 1960, Piccard and Lt. Don Walsh reached the floor of the Mariana Trench located in the western North Pacific. The depth of the descent was measured at 10, 916 meters and the descent took almost five hours.

The historic dive received worldwide attention, and Piccard wrote an account of it, “Seven Miles Down”, with Robert Deitz, a renowned geologist who had helped plan the mission. The “ Trieste” was expensive to maintain and operate and it was difficult to collect samples and couldn’t take photographs, so it had little scientific data to show for its voyages.

5. He Was the Leader of the Ben Franklin Mission

Two days before the Apollo 11 launch on July 14, 1969, the Ben Franklin, also known as the Grumman/Piccard PX-15 mesoscaphe. The Ben Franklin was towed to the high-velocity centre of the Gulf Stream off the coast of Palm Beach, Florida.

With its six-man international crew, the Ben Franklin descended to 1,000 feet off of Riviera Beach, Florida. It drifted 1,444 miles north with the current for more than four weeks, surfacing near Maine.

Ben Franklin was named for the American patriot and inventor who was one of the first to chart the Gulf Stream. The 50-foot Ben Franklin was built between 1966 and 1968 in Switzerland for Piccard and the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation.

Piccard was the mission leader, Erwin Aebersold, handpicked pilot and main assistant to Piccard and project engineer during Franklin’s design and construction. The Ben Franklin has been restored and now resides in the Vancouver Maritime Museum in Vancouver, Canada.

6. Piccard Built the Mesoscaphe Auguste Piccard

The first and till this day largest built submarine for tourism purposes, and also the largest non-military submarine. The Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard built it for the Swiss National Exhibition in 1964. Model in the Swiss museum of transportation in Lucerne, Switzerland, Nov 3, 2014. (1/15). Photo by Kecko-Wikimedia

The Auguste Piccard mesoscaphe, simply the Mesoscaphe, was a manned underwater submarine designed in 1964 by Jacques Piccard. It was the world’s first passenger submarine constructed for Expo64, the 1964 Swiss national exhibition in Lausanne.

The Auguste Piccard attained 1,100 dives in Lake Geneva with 33,000 visitors in 1964 and 1965. The ride cost CHF 40 and was the hit of the national exhibition, and it also achieved scientific and industrial observation dives in the Gulf of Mexico between 1969 to 1984.

The ship is presently on display at the Swiss Museum of Transport in Lucerne. Auguste Piccard was fully restored for the first time between 2005 and 2014, and the restoration took 28,000 hours.

7. Piccard Was a Founding Member of the World Cultural Council

In 1981, Piccard became a founding member of the World Cultural Council. The World Cultural Council is an international organization whose goals are to promote cultural values, goodwill and Philanthropy among individuals.

The organization has held yearly award ceremonies giving the Albert Einstein World Award of Science, the Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts and the Jose Vasconcelos World Award of Education to outstanding scientists, artists and educators who have contributed positively to the cultural enrichment of humanity.

8. Piccard Made Major Influence and Received Various Distinctions

Matt Ruhlmann, an Ambient artist and Celer collaboratively released an album called Mosescaphe in 2008. The album was dedicated to the Voyage of Ben Franklin.

Piccard was awarded the Howard N. Potts Medal in 1972. He was also awarded Doctor honoris causa on February 1, 2008, at the Catholic University of Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve).

9. He Built FA Forel (PX-28)

F.A. Forel midget submarine. Photo by Gzzz-Wikimedia

Piccard built the FA Forel, a manned underwater submersible built in 1978. It was among the four submarines that explored Lake Geneva’s depths, along with the Auguste Piccard and the Two Mirs. It is currently on display at La Maison de la Riviere in Tolochenaz.

10. Piccard Died at 86

Piccard died on November 1, 2008, at the age of 86. He died at his Lake home in Switzerland, and his son’s company confirmed when he died.

After his death, his son Bertrand Piccard continues his family traditions. He commanded the first non-stop balloon flight worldwide in March 1999 and the first solar-powered plane flight worldwide in December 2009.