Bathyscaphe Triest: The Quest to Actually Dive 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea 

When the Titan disaster happened, I immediately thought of Trieste. Because I once read a book about it. Among other things, how carefully Piccard chose the steel, tested samples and consulted with metalworking engineers. Did all the science right.

I feel like now is a GREAT time for RU-vid to re-recommend this to everyone

The window cracking while going deeper into the ocean must be one of the most terrifying things you could experience.

*Common misconception:* the vessel in Jules Verne's novel never dives to a depth of anywhere near 20k leagues. If I remember correctly, it never even goes further than just a couple hundred meters. The 20k leagues from the title refers to the distance of its transoceanic voyage around the world.

Gigachad Bathyscape Triest vs Virgin Titan submersible

Greetings from Trieste!!!! we are still quite proud of the vessels once we built. Today our shipyard con only perform maintence work, but in the past many amazing ship were built here. Nice video, good work....and thanks a lot!!!!

Auguste Piccard was the real life model for Professor Calculus in Hergé's Adventures of Tintin. Hergé used to sketch passers bye in the street as he sat outside a cafe, Piccard held a teaching appointment in Brussels and Hergé spotted him as he walked bye on his way to work. At 1:46 with basket weave crash helmet, he looks not entirely hinged.

I miss the days when Inventors use to look like Bond villains

Your 2 year old video, and that amazing adventure 60 years ago have both held up well. Glad you're getting well deserved exposure for this, as it is giving many people a method to compare good scientific progress with some alternative adventures that didn't work out as well.

I remember this in school in the 6th grade in the 60s. My teacher was heavily into science and he got a study film that included the Trieste. I found it fascinating.

The Piccards are an amazing family. His son flew around the world in a completely solar powered airplane.

Google should send Google Map guys to scan the oceans floor...

Friday 6/2023: Absolutely Excellent! I was 8 years old at the time and I remember the Triest very well. It's a shame that this past Sunday we lost the "Titan" submersible at the Titanic wreck site with 5 souls on board. Implosion. The captain of the submersible and CEO of the company that built the Titan was the husband of the Great Great Granddaughter of Ida and Isidor Straus, both of whom died on the Titanic. She now has 3 relatives at the Titanic wreck. A sad loss. Titanic claims 5 more souls. RIP Titan Crew. (a "bad omen" name for that craft). Triest was remarkable and well built. Thank You once again Simon.

The Piccard familly is still doing this kind of stuff : you may have heard of solar impulse, and one of the pilots was the son or the grand son (I don't remember) of the guy in this video

Came here on 6/22/2023 because 5 men in carbon fiber submersible driven by a game controller imploded on the way down to see the Titanic.

Idea for a Megaprojects video; the human genome project, a fascinating science project

If I'd been in there when that window crack there would have definitely been a leak develop. A small puddle of yellow fluid at the bottom of the sphere

When I was a kid I saw that iconic picture of the Trieste and I thought the stripey tank was the part that people were inside. When I found out it was just the little bubble I was both terrified and impressed.

[Ahem] 20,000 leagues is ~70,000 miles. Jules Verne's title refers to the total distance traveled by the Nautilus while submerged--not how deep it went.

I remember reading about this in a book my parents got me when I was a kid and thinking how incredible it must have been to be the first to be at that depth. As an adult I still feel that way though now I know how brave those guys were.

I was in the USN in the early’60’s. I went through ‘Scuba School’ @ NEL and Trieste was pointed out to me. This was shortly after the record dive. I really enjoyed this video. Brought back fond memories. Thank you Simon.

1:10 - Chapter 1 - Bathyscaphes 3:05 - Chapter 2 - Trieste 5:10 - Chapter 3 - Early career 5:45 - Chapter 4 - Project nexton 8:50 - Chapter 5 - Challenger deep 11:05 - Chapter 6 - Where nobody has gone before

It's still a balloon, it just works in water instead of in air. Fun fact: These things are actually much more dangerous on the surface than at the bottom of the ocean since they are built to survive massive pressure, they are not built to survive even gentle waves for very long. The hull of the float has a tendency to shake itself apart like an overamped Energizer bunny.

Simon, the probability that the ship transporting the Trieste to Mariana Trench would be the Santa Mariana was actually 1 in 4. The Navy needed a ship that could carry both the cargo and the personnel needed for the operation. The company operating in the Pacific that offered this possibility was Grace Line who had 4 cargo/passenger ships, all named Santa M(something), including the Santa Mariana.

Is anyone else wondering why Picard is posing with his kids wearing a basket on his head? (1:47)

Thank you Mr. Piccard.

It’s crazy to think that 90% of this submersible is equipment to get the researchers where they wanted to go , and only just the sphere at the bottom is meant to hold people.. when you compare the amount of equipment relative to how many people trieste can hold compared to the amount of equipment onboard titan and how many people IT could hold, it’s no wonder it imploded

I'm here after the titan submarine went missing

Titan brought me here.

What up Simon? You're on a roll. Hope you're doing well mate.

And after that 1960 dive the next person to visit the Challenger Deep would be ...James Cameron several years after I had dropped out of college for the second time in 2012.

Submarines don't need extra ballards because of the sheer weight of their crews balls.

Note the sky facing dorsolateral access hatch which ensures anyone can egress the vehicle once it reaches the surface. That is way nicer than having to wait an hour while someone slowly seals you inside by manually turning a bolt.

Idea for a megaproject: Brasilia. An entire city built in 1000 days.

I saw the bathyscaphe at an exhibition here in Switzerland. I was surprised that it still exists.

Both Trieste (DSV1) & Alvin (DSV2) are extremely underrated in the mainstream in terms of their past (& ongoing) contributions to scientific knowledge & discoveries. For example, we all take for granted the knowledge of the Earth's tectonic plates & their movement, but this wasn't discovered until the 1980's when Alvin began studying the Mid-Atlantic Ridge!

1:40 This "Piccard" was an explorer you say! Was he a "Captain" by chance? 🤔

Jules Vernes’s novel title: « 20000 Leagues Under The Sea » had nothing to do with the depth. It was about the distance covered under the sea.

I would be thrilled if you would do an episode on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Truly an amazing road! Its lowest point is just over 400 feet above sea level, and its highest point passes within sight of the highest point east of the Mississippi. It would be neat to hear more about! Also, I would love to see a sideprojects on all of the experimental planes from the late 40's to early 60's.

The Piccards are an amazing family. Their final achievment in exploring the Universe and boldly go where no men has gone before. TNG is awaiting us.

You went to new depths, with deep details! Simon, you sunk this one in for us!

My father dove in the Triest the Aluminaught and the Alvin. Nads of steel.

9:25 - 300 bombs to find a canyon...'Murica.

Fun fact: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea meant horizontal distance, not depth. Bathyscaphe from Greek Βαθυσκάφος (va-thi-ska-fos), literally "deep vessel".

Only if OceanGate CEO researched more or would've just replicated the Bathyscaphe Trieste submersible. Or even Mir 1 and Mir 2 submersibles if you're at it. These two Russian submersibles (now decommissioned) were designed such that they can go deeper than the depth at which the Titanic is now. Also, it was used by James Cameron to explore the Titanic's surroundings as well as look inside the Titanic using tethered bots. OR, a submersible called DSV Limiting Factor, which was lab tested to dive deeper than the deepest place on the earth. But then DSV Limiting Factor, which is still in service, costed like 37 million dollars, far more than OceanGate's Titan may have costed.

One thing you missed about the window...it wasn't a flat pane. It was a very tapered cone-shaped block of glass. The tip of the cone was where the crew looked out, and the wide base was on the water side. This allowed for the pressure at depth to help push the cone in place on the mounting....similar to a plug door in an airliner. The cracking was scary, but because it was a solid block, the cracks did not propagate to the point where the cone would give way. If that had happened, the crew would never know it.

I guess the men were like "screw the cracked window, the deepest part of the ocean is beautiful!"

Might I suggest the Rideau Canal as a future MP? Built in 1826. Pre-railroad era dams and locks built by hard labour and Scottish stone masons. 6 years, 200km, about 1000 dead. Engineering marvel of the 19th century. It's still there. It still works. The furthest reach of it was declared the Capital of Canada by Queen Victoria. It remains so today. - - - Bloddy excellent work on these vids! You and your team are amazing!

Piccard is both the inspiration for professor Calculus in Tintin and the name of Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek. Talk of an awesome legacy…

God, it annoys me how people still twist it and get it so wrong. 20000 leagues under the sea meant 20000 leagues traveled while being under the sea. Not depth. A league is three nautical miles...The depth of the deepest point in the ocean is only just about 2 leagues, and a bit.

Great video, i've always been fascinated by the Trieste, especially as a boy growing up in Miami in the 1960s

why the F did Stockton Goofball think going down in a TUBE was a good idea when all successful submersibles are SPHERICAL?

Great presentation! Learned many facts of this "old" deep sea sub and record. Will watch this video again to remember more facts!

We now know that hyperosmocity is not a barrier to macro and microlife. It was once beleived that life beyond certain depth was not possible as extreme pressure prevented proper protein folding. Until it was discovered that bathnic life had enzymes and other simpler proteins that assisted complex protein folding. As long as water remained liquid, no mater how cold, life could exist and prosper. High water pressure also increases salinity which turns seawater into a mild salt acid. This assists lifeforms in processing sinking organic matter down to molecular level. Some virologists beleive that virons first formed at bottom of Earth's oceans about 4 to 3.7 billion years ago.When those oceans were even deeper due to fracturing of crust.

I'd love to see an episode about the reversal of the Chicago River.

I am already certain that the top of simons head is aerodynamically efficient, but now I start to wonder would it also be hydrodynamically efficient? Thx for another great video to help pass the time during these dark days

They went where no one had gone before.

I'd like to suggest Oak Ridge National Lab/Y-12. ORNL and it's accompanying city didn't officially exist until they'd already existed for a few decades. It was also designed to take one nuclear warhead per building (separated by mountain ridges).

I read this video title as "Birthplace of Thirst" and so I clicked

Idea: Construction of US Interstate 70 through the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. So spectacularly difficult and expensive it was only finished in 1992 (the last part of the interstate highway system) and it still occasionally has boulders fall down and punch holes through it

My father was a U.S. Navy officer stationed on Guam then and I was his oldest child. I attended the Adelup Elementary School and my third grade class took a field trip to see the Trieste before her record breaking dive. About a month later, my family went to Tarague Beach. Lieutenant Don Walsh and my father were friends, and Jacques Piccard was an acquaintance. We saw them there, and Jacques Piccard was kind enough to take about 5 minutes to tell a hero worshipping almost nine year old boy what he saw. Sixty-one years later, I remember his first words about the bottom of the Challenger Deep: "We expected to see a desert, and the first thing we saw was life." Almost 21 years later, I was assigned as a Naval Flight Officer to Dad's old squadron on Guam, but that is another story for another day... 69 year old Mustang Naval Flight Officer sends.

Perfect timing watching this after the Titan broke trying to reach the Titanic

I´m surprised that you did not mention the matter that the U.S. military, funding the _Trieste,_ insisted that the American flag be raised above the height of the accompanying Swiss flag. After having successfully “summitted“ the Challenger Deep, it was soon noted that it was the Swiss flag, not the American flag, which had _officially_ descended the lowest. (4:15) It is not true that the “hoppers were discarded with help by magnets on top of the craft.“ The hoppers were fixed in place. For each hopper, batteries energized an annular electromagnet at the open orifice of the hopper full of iron pellets. As long as the batteries supplied charge, there would be a “bolus“ of iron pellets which would impede spillage. This engineering solution was chosen for being an automatic failsafe (You said this). *FUN FACT Nº 1:* It would have been fun to see a visceral demonstration of water pressure at depth. There is archival footage that shows Piccard aboard the support vessel carefully opening the hatch to relieve the pressurized water of the flooded bathysphere, and _BLAM!_ there is an immediate _subsonic horizontal column of seawater -- OH MY GOD!_ I wonder how Piccard thought that at such pressures it was acceptably safe to get even _near_ it, let alone unlatch a hinged hatch that had been intended to withstand force from the outside, not the inside. *FUN FACT Nº 2:* Gene Roddenberry, creator of _Star Trek_ and later its 1986 reboot, _The Next Generation,_ named its protagonist Capt. Picard _(sic)_ in homage of the Piccard brothers.

Idea for a Megaprojects video: New Egyptian Administrative capital: Wedian City.

That window crack had to be the most sphincter-clinching moment in history.

suggestion: the James Bay hydroelectric complex in Northern Québec, the largest in North America.

"Purposefully overbuilt with the pressure demands in mind" Funny that.

It is just baffling how the Piccards dont get enough credit for this whole story. Thank you so much for including them in this video. Jacques was very much involved in the building and piloting..he wasnt just "the son". Well in most of the documentairies about the dive the Piccards are just a side note at best. As Swiss, or shall we say non-US-citizens they are unfitting for the patriotic narrative..how sad and unfair!anyways that video was pretty insightful with interesting footage and data of this beautiful and strange vessel. Thank you for the effort!

Another suggestion, the USS Nautilus SSN-571

I remember reading about the Trieste along with one of the famous cutaway drawings in the “Eagle” It was an amazing feat at its time! It was the prototype that ended with James Cameron’s amazing dives!

Idea for a megaprojects video. All the dams on the columbia river and the columbia river treaty

Video idea: how about the construction of Daytona International Speedway?

This was one of the most outstanding exploration achievements in human history. Everest, hold my submarine. The design, the challenge. Lets go for it. Everyone thinks of Everest, but not the challenger deep. If I speak of this I would just get a Uhhhhh.

Megaproject suggestions -Australia's massive Snowy Mountains Scheme which took 25 years to construct. 50 years on is still causing issues. A legacy is Toyota Landcruiser and its toughness which is still part of the brand to this day.

Boy, that "this was an amazing feat done without the modern equipment found on the submersibles of today" comment did NOT age well

The Triest was used to find and survey the ill fated USS Thresher nuclear submarine when that went down in 1963, as it was at a depth beyond anything else the US Navy had at it's disposal at the time (approx. 8400 ft)

Yes do the human Genome Project it was ground breaking for its time.

I asked a challenger deep mega projects. We got one I'm satisfied. Great work Simon

The Trieste can be seen at the Keyport naval museum in Keyport washington

Mega Project idea: USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-D.

The large banana shaped structure is a bag filled with gasoline, which is less dense than water, thereby providing buoyancy for the craft. Only the sphere under the gasoline bag carries the explorers.

One of the best videos on the Channel for me :)

This channel should be renamed "coldwarprojects"

In case anyone was wondering about the possibility of drowning at that depth, I would like to quote William Beebe, who had previously shared the deep sea depth record with Otis Barton, creator of the Bathysphere (kind of a bathyscaphe without the big float). Regarding a dive to just over a half-mile depth (about one-twelfth the depth Trieste later reached), he noted: _"... instant, unthinkably instant death would result from the least fracture of glass or collapse of metal. There was no possible chance of being drowned, for the first few drops would have shot through flesh and bone like steel bullets."_

Back when dudes just had bawlz of iron. Crazy scientist: Hey man, let's build some stuff and go to the bottom of the ocean. Crazy engineer: We've been to the bottom. Crazy scientist: I mean THE bottom. Crazy engineer: Say no more fam...

Cool! My Dad was the navigator in an Air Force C47 rescue aircraft that overflew the dive into Mariana's trench.

Simon's world, 71% water 4% You tube & 25% cocaine

simon please do a video about the original world trade center that was destroyed on 9/11/2001 I have been asking for you to do a video about the original world trade center that was destroyed on 9/11/2001 for months

Wait.. so it turns out epoxy glue to hold a submersible together is a bad idea? Someone tell Stockton Rush! Oh, wait....

Great video. I remember pouring over the details of the dive as they approached the final dive to the depths and was entranced by the technology of the Trieste.I was in Elementary School at the time.

Sadly the Trieste was instrumental in locating the wreckage of the USS Thresher nuclear submarine after it imploded in the Atlantic.

27 Burj Khalifas? Aren't u supposed to measure height in elephants?

Mir 1 and Mir 2, would fit the submersible theme.

Not a mega project but one for biographics. Ranulph Finnes? A personal hero of mine.

20,000 leagues under the sea is a reference to the distance traveled while submerged in the novel. if it referred to depth, it would be ~10,000 times deeper than the challenger deep. I dont know how many burj khalifas that is.

Ocean gate should of watched this before they built their shitbox😂

“Actually?” The ‘Trieste’ dived to the bottom of the Marianas Trench. 20,000 leagues is 364566929 feet, or just shy of 70K miles, 272 times the altitude of the International Space Station’s orbit. In contrast, the lowest spot in the Marianas Trench is 36,201 ft, or not quite 7 miles. So actually NOT.

The RU-vid algo's digging this one up today.

I feel like it's no coincidence that a video on deepsea ocean exploring gets suggested to me less than two weeks after that submarine of billionaires imploded above the Titanic wrreck

The book "2000 Fathoms Down" by Houot & Willm is well worth reading. It describes the development of the FNRS-3 bathyscaphe that was built by the French navy around the sphere of Piccard's earlier FNRS-2. It was completed in mid 1953 and held the depth record until Trieste overtook it.