Bathyscaphe Trieste
Trieste is a Swiss-designed, Italian-built deep-diving research bathyscaphe, which with its crew of two reached a record maximum depth of about , in the deepest known part of the Earth's oceans, the Challenger Deep, in the Mariana Trench near Guam in the Pacific. On 23 January 1960, Jacques Piccard (son of the boat's designer Auguste Piccard) and US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh achieved the goal of Project Nekton.
Deep-sea exploration
In 1948, Swiss physicist Auguste Piccard tested a much deeper-diving vessel he invented called the bathyscaphe, a navigable deep-sea vessel with its gasoline-filled float and suspended chamber or gondola of spherical steel. On an experimental dive in the Cape Verde Islands, his bathyscaphe successfully withstood the pressure on it at , but its body was severely damaged by heavy waves after the dive. In 1954, with this bathyscaphe, Piccard reached a depth of . In 1953, his son Jacques Piccard joined in building new and improved bathyscaphe , which dived to in field trials. The United States Navy acquired "Trieste" in 1958 and equipped it with a new cabin to enable it to reach deep ocean trenches. In 1960, Jacques Piccard and United States Navy Lieutenant Donald Walsh descended in "Trieste" to the deepest known point on Earth - the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, successfully making the deepest dive in history: .
An increasing number of occupied submersibles are now employed around the world. The American-built that is operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, is a three-person submarine that can dive to about and is equipped with a mechanical manipulator to collect bottom samples. "Alvin" made its first test dive in 1964, and has performed more than 3,000 dives to average depths of . "Alvin" has also involved in a wide variety of research projects, such as one where giant tube worms were discovered on the Pacific Ocean floor near the Galápagos Islands.