A bathyscape or bathyscaphe is a self-propelled deep-sea diving submersible, consisting of a crew cabin similar to a bathysphere suspended below a float filled with a buoyant liquid such as petrol. It floods tanks to descend but unlike a submarine they cannot be refilled underwater. To ascend solid ballast, e.g. containers of lead shot are released and allowed to sink to the ocean floor.
Auguste Piccard, inventor of the first bathyscaphe, composed the name bathyscaphe using the Greek words "bathos" (depth) and "skaphos" (ship).
The first bathyscape was FNRS-2, built in Belgium by Piccard. Propulsion is provided by battery-driven electric motors.
Piccard's second bathyscaphe was Trieste, and was purchased by the US Navy in 1957. It had two water tanks and 11 petrol tanks.[1] In 1960 Trieste set a world record by diving to a depth of 35,810 feet (10,915 meters) at the bottom of the Challenger Deep, the deepest point in the Mariana Trench and believed to be the deepest point in the world's oceans.
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Bathyscaphe (Piccard)
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