Jacques-Yves Cousteau was born on June 11, 1910, in Saint-André-de-Cubzac, France, and died at the age of 86 in Paris. Jacques Cousteau, as he became known, was an officer of the French navy and an explorer of the ocean, being immortalized due to his extensive research and works related to the ocean and also due to his inventions that are used today as a working tool for most of the marine biologists. Cousteau also contributed to the film industry, winning two Oscars (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2020).
Aqua-Lung
After suffering a near-fatal car accident as a young man, Cousteau broke both arms, as part of his rehabilitation of the limbs, he started by swimming in the Mediterranean Sea. It was at this point in his life that Jacques Cousteau developed a taste and curiosity for diving. When he started diving, Cousteau began to experiment with the diving technologies that existed at that time. At the time, there were only two options: closed-circuit rebreather and the Le Prieur open circuit dive kit. The first made him suffer seizures on several occasions, the second Cousteau considered it simply impractical (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2020).
After verifying that none of the options would be valid for him, he decided to solve the problems that the diving equipment of the time presented, thus designing his dive regulator. "Aqua-Lung", was undoubtedly the most important contribution of Jacques Cousteau to the world of diving, being, therefore, the first underwater open-circuit breathing mechanism. Jacques Cousteau and Émile Gagnan jointly developed the "Aqua-Lung", Gangnan was an expert in high-pressure pneumatic design. At present, "Aqua-Lung" is known as a demand valve or diving regulator (The Cousteau Society, 2020).
The inspiration came from a similar valve that would be used in gas generating engines. The first “Aqua-Lung” was sold in France (1946) and was dubbed the autonomous scaphandre Cousteau-Gagnan. Four years later, Cousteau and Gagnan saw “Aqua-Lung” being distributed around the world (The Cousteau Society, 2020).
Aqua Lung advertising pamphlets designed by Jacques Cousteau and Émile Gagnan (Photograph taken from http://globalfirstsandfacts.com/2017/08/23/scuba-aqualung-by-jacques-yves-cousteau-and-emil-gagnan/).
Diving Saucer
Jacques Cousteau together with Jean Mollard, engineer, designed the Diving Saucer, also nicknamed "diving disk". Diving Saucer was a modest submarine that was only capable of supporting two people inside. Its construction took place in 1959, after several precise tests it became part of Cousteau's work tools, staying permanently in his famous research vessel Calypso. In 1976, Cousteau used it to explore the wreckage of HMHS Britannic, the submarine reached four hundred meters in-depth, having never, for safety reasons, exceeded three hundred meters (The Cousteau Society, 2020).
To enter the submarine, it would be necessary to do so through the hatch located at the top of the hull. The two crew members would have to lie side by side and watch the environment through tilted portholes. The Diving Saucer reached a speed of 3.7 km / h due to its propellants that emitted electric water jets. The submarine still had electric lamps so that when it was used for night diving or when reaching great depths, they could obtain a marine photograph (The Cousteau Society, 2020).
Shark Cages
Jacques Cousteau was also the pioneer of shark cages. Quite possibly, Cousteau was the first to use them, to assist him in his scientific explorations where the objective was to observe and understand the behavior of sharks (Townsend, 2011).
Calypso Photo Camera
Cousteau's list of inventions includes the aquatic photography machine. Cousteau's first film camera, Calypso in honor of his prestigious ship, was used underwater introduced into an underwater box and consequently, the photo came out with terrible quality. Cousteau wanted a tool that would allow him to obtain a better quality photograph, solving problems such as blocking controls or leakage of cases (Tocchio, 2018).
Cousteau in partnership with Jean Wouters, aeronautical engineer, and inventor, designed Calypso. The camera was produced by Atoms, a French company targeting this sector. Calypso has become a worldwide event, being used in Hollywood films, as in the film "James Bond, Thunderball". Due to the success of the camera, world leader Nikon, the camera manufacturer, has secured exclusive production and distribution rights outside Europe. Calypso was renamed Nikon Nikonos (Tocchio, 2018).
Calypso camera, invented by Jacques Cousteau and Jean Wouters (Photograph taken from https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/50384089556507955/).
Underwater Habitats
Jacques Cousteau, in the early 1960s, formed a partnership with George Bond, a well-known military doctor in the field of hyperbaric medicine whose dream was to build underwater capsules, where divers could stay overnight and stay for weeks until (Macdonald, 2015).
In 1962, Conshelf I was built on the coast of Marseille with 10 meters of water. Conshelf II, on the other hand, was built in Sudan on the Red Sea where it includes a starfish-shaped habitat, in turn, it is 10 meters from the surface, and in the habitat with greater depth, it reaches 33 meters. Nowadays, Conshelf II is explored by divers and has become a true soft coral ecosystem. Conshelf III was installed near the coast of Nice, France, at an incredible 100 meters deep (Macdonald, 2015).
This whole project proved that the human being can live underwater for a long period, however, despite the physical and psychological fitness for this, the lack of solar energy has become a less favorable factor for this. However, these experiments gave rise to what is currently the training of astronauts before they were sent into outer space (Macdonald, 2015).
Jacques Cousteau, throughout his life, developed other extraordinary projects, such as the decompression chamber for simulated dives, underwater television equipment, underwater scooters, and wind turbines exclusively for his expedition ship, in this case, Alcyone. However, all of their inventions, despite the technological innovations applied to them, in fact improving them more and more, impacted what today is marine exploration, providing important and indispensable tools even today.
"The sea, once it casts its spell, imprisons a person in its network of wonders forever"
Jacques-Yves Cousteau
Reference List:
Cousteau's underwater habitat, Sudan.. 2015. [video] Youtube.
Dr. Doug Inman and the Cousteau Diving Saucer at Scripps. 2016. [video] Directed by M. Lynn Price. Youtube.
Early Aqua Lung Prototypes in use by Cousteau. Archive film 3372. 2018. [video]. Youtube: HuntleyFilmArchives.
Macdonald, J., 2015. Diving History: Jacques Cousteau’S Conshelf Missions. [online] Scuba Diver Life. Available at: <https://scubadiverlife.com/diving-history-jacques-cousteaus-conshelf-missions/> [Accessed 12 July 2020].
The Cousteau society. 2020. Cousteau's Aqua Lung. [online] Available at: <https://www.cousteau.org/legacy/technology/aqua-lung/> [Accessed 12 July 2020].
The Cousteau society. 2020. Cousteau's diving saucer. [online] Available at: <https://www.cousteau.org/legacy/technology/diving-saucer/> [Accessed 12 July 2020].
The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. 2020. Jacques Cousteau. [online] Available at: <https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jacques-Cousteau> [Accessed 11 July 2020].
Tocchio, J., 2018. Diving Deep with Nikonos - A Brief History Of Nikon's Underwater Cameras - Casual Photophile. [online] Casual Photophile. Available at: <https://casualphotophile.com/2018/04/17/nikon-nikonos-retrospective-review-film-camera-blog/> [Accessed 10 July 2020].
Townsend, A., 2011. Invention of the Shark Cage. Time, [online] Available at: <http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2085822_2085823_2086095,00.html> [Accessed 12 July 2020].