Jacques Cousteau :: essays papers

Jacques CousteauJacques-Yves Cousteau was born in St. Andre de Cubazac, France in 1910. Theson of a lawyer, Jacques was warned by doctors to avoid strenuous activitiesdue to chronic enteritis and anenemia. This did not put on his sense foradventure. At age 11, he built a foot working model of a two hundred tonmarine crane. At age 13, he made a battery powered automobile. In 1930, at theage of twenty, Jacques entered the French Naval Academy. Form 1933 to 1935 heserved in the remote East aboard the cruiser Primaguet and ashore in Shanghai. Hetrained as a Navy flier until a serious automobile mishap ended his aviationcareer. For his war efforts he was awarded two medals. One for honor and theother, A Purple Heart. Afterwards, he took part in mapmaking study on theIndochina Coast. In 1936, near Toulon, he tried underwater goggles for thefirst time, and his future course was set. In 1943, he and Emile Gagnandeveloped the first regulated compressed-air take a breath device for sust ained,unencumbered diving. After World War II, he created and organized, inconjunction with Commander Philippe Tailliez and Frdric Dumas, an underwaterresearch unit to slaver out technical experiments and laboratory studies indiving. In 1950 he founded Campagne Oceanographique Francaise. Also, in thesame year, Captain Cousteau acquired Calypso, a retired minesweeper ofAmerican construction. Over the next year, she was transformed into anoceanographic vessel, and the adventures of the now-famous channel began. In thefour decades since, she has sailed literally around the world and has exploredmany of the planets major rivers. In collaboration with engineer JeanMollard, Cousteau designed the Diving Saucer in 1959, a round, highlymaneuverable, two-person submersible capable of diving to a depth of 350meters. In 1965, twin one-man submersibles, the Sea Fleas, were launched byCousteau. He also direct three experiments in saturation-diving techniquesConshelf I off Marseille (1962), Con shelf II in the Red Sea (1963), andfinally Conshelf III (1965), near Nice, in which six men alert a helium-oxygen mixture lived and worked at 100 meters for three weeks. This was thefirst of its kind. Not only is Captain Cousteau a oceanographer, he is also a originator and documentarian. Jacques Cousteau has produced more than seventyfilms for television, films which have won numerous Emmys and other awards. Hehas also produced three full-length theatrical feature films, The SilentWorld, World Without Sun, and transit to the Edge of the World. Cousteau haswritten, in collaboration with various co-authors, more than fifty books,