Piccard, Jacques Ernest-Jean (1922- )

Swiss oceanic engineer, physicist, and economist

Jacques Piccard is a Swiss oceanic engineer best noted for making the deepest ocean dive (with Lt. Don Walsh) in the bathyscaph Trieste, a submersible vessel he helped build with his father, Auguste Piccard.

Jacques Ernest-Jean Piccard was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1922, where his Swiss-born father taught at the city's university. He attended the École Nouvelle de Suisse Romande in Lausanne, Switzerland, and in 1943, enrolled at the University of Geneva where he studied economics, history and physics . Piccard put his education on hold for a year in 1944 to serve with the French First Army. Upon leaving the service, he resumed studies and went on to receive his licentiate in 1946.

In the 1950s, Piccard joined his father in designing new and improved deep ships or "bathyscaphes." Their 50-ft (15-m) long navigable diving vessel, the Trieste, consisted of a heavier-than-water steel cabin that could resist sea pressure and a float filled with gasoline to provide lift. On August 1, 1953, the pair launched the Trieste to a depth of 10,168 ft (3,099 m) off the coast of Ponza, Italy.

Jacques Piccard then took the idea to the United States government in 1956; two years later the U.S. Navy acquired the Trieste and redesigned the cabin so the vehicle could descend to deeper ocean trenches . Subsequently, the Navy asked Piccard to serve as their consultant.

It was during this time that Piccard performed what many believe to be his most noteworthy accomplishment. On January 23, 1960, Piccard, along with U.S. Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh, made a dive in the Trieste to the deepest known point on Earth. The team descended 35,810 ft (10,916 m) in area known as the Challenger Deep in Pacific's Mariana Trench. Piccard and Walsh sat in a 6-ft-diameter (1.8-m) steel capsule at the base of the ship while the vessel made the nearly five-hour dive to the ocean floor. Just shy of 7 mi (11 km), the dive set a new submarine depth record. In the decades since the feat, no one has come within 10,000 ft (3,048 m) of Piccard and Walsh's record.

In later years, the Trieste helped locate the sunken nuclear submarine U.S.S. Thresher, and documented information on another sunken sub, U.S.S. Scorpion. The original Trieste now sits in the Navy Museum in Washington, D.C.

In the 1960s, Piccard continued to work with his father and designed the first tourist submarine. The mesoscaphe, as they called it, was an underwater observation vehicle capable of carrying 40 tourists.

For most of his life, Piccard has continued the oceanographic work inspired by his father. He has served as a consultant for a number of private deep-sea research organizations, including the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation. His son, Bertrand, has kept the Piccard spirit of adventure alive, but by traveling up instead of down. In 1999, Bertrand Piccard and his teammate, Brian Jones, became the first to circumnavigate the globe in a hot-air balloon.

See also Deep sea exploration