Don Walsh: The man who made the deepest ever dive | Hacker News Reader

Don Walsh: The man who made the deepest ever dive

bbc.com

61 pointsWithinReason18 comments

What's terrifying on the bathyscaphe Trieste (pictured in the article) is that the 'living quarters' are only the small sphere attached underneath.

Still it is larger than the one on Deepsea Challenger, which can only barely fit a single person, and which James Cameron used for his dive.

What's also terrifying is that the buoyancy tanks, the big tanks at the top, ate filled with gasoline

It's not as terrifying a couple miles away from atmospheric oxygen. Gasoline is a perfect flotation fluid, since it is just as incompressible as water but only about 75% of the density.

Indeed, but it doesn't stay down there forever. It also comes back up an lives the bulk of its life up here.

On the ship, right next to literal tons of bunker fuel :)

Which is then transferred to the bathyscape at the surface no? Not at depth?

Related, this fantastic article about Victor Vescovo who dived the deepest points of the globe

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/18/thirty-six-tho...

Yeah, I watched the documentary[1] about this a few months ago, and must say the Limiting Factor is a pretty awesome sub.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb5j9oeZCm0

This is a good line: Ocean and space exploration are frequently compared, and Don often joked that he had the “Right Stuff”, just in the wrong direction.

This makes me realize that there are people who have made the deepest dives and people who have made the highest jump (parachute) descent but no records have been make of people combining them (highest release from an aircraft, descending to the water and continuing to descend for as far as possible).

Who will be the first to set a record? Musk, Bezos: the future is calling you!

Not the same, but I should mention that multiple people have traveled overland from the Dead Sea, as lowest point on earth, to Everest as the highest.

Not the same but equally interesting so thanks!

The inverse: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/682764-fi...

Wow!

Your comment reminds me of Boards of Canada's "Dayvan Cowboy" video, which blends Joe Kittinger's space jump with Laird Hamilton's surfing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2zKARkpDW4

Feels like more of an "extreme x-games event" rather than gratuitous science of dubious value, wouldn't you say? :-)

I remember scuba divers taking a styrofoam coffee cup down, and coming back with what looks like a tiny white shot glass.

I wonder how (if?) the human mind can imagine the pressure at the bottom of the trench.

My first thought was: Did he survive the dive?

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