Bathysphere: Historical Photos of the World’s First Deep-Sea Exploration Vessel

Probably worth pointing out that most of the text of this article is excerpted (without attribution) from the Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathysphere

The book "Descent: The Heroic Discovery of the Abyss" by Bradford Matsen is all about Otis Barton, William Beebe, and the Bathysphere. The idea of locking yourself into a steel sphere and descending an order of magnitude deeper than any human had previously (and coming back alive) is wild. It's an excellent book that I found at a used book sale and it kinda sent me into a deep sea exploration rabbit hole. "Seven Miles Down: The Story of the Bathyscaph Trieste" by Jacques Piccard descending down to the bottom of the Challenger Deep is also a good one.

Also nice to see the mention of the Piccards. Ballooning to the highest altitudes on Earth and descending to Earth's depths as well. (And there is the Star Trek: TNG connection of course.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Piccard

So the bathyspheres in Bioshock have a real-life precursor. Fascinating!

If you enjoyed this - check out this timeline of undersea 'vehicles' some great images and detail about each one. https://cyberneticzoo.com/early-underwater-manipulators-and-...

The Royal BC Museum in Victoria BC for a number of years had an exhibit that featured a film of a descent in a bathysphere, you can watch it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChOywETthqg

Wow the photo at the top gave me “a good type” of chills.

I’ve read about the “Jesus nut” which was used as a singular nut to fix a helicopter blade and the Bathysphere definitely has a single nut on that shackle from what I can see

name from the greek βαθύς = deep https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B2%CE%B1%CE%B8%CF%8D%CF%8...