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 need his sense foradventure. At age 11, he built a metrical unit working model of a two hundred ton leatherneck crane. At age 13, he made a battery provide automobile. In 1930, at theage of twenty, Jacques entered the French Naval Academy. Form 1933 to 1935 heserved in the Far East aboard the cruiser Primaguet and ashore in Shanghai. Hetrained as a Navy flier until a serious automobile accident ended his aviationcareer. For his war efforts he was awarded two medals. One for honor and theother, A Purple Heart. Afterwards, he took set ab stunned in mapmaking study along 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 breat hing device for sustained, clear diving. After World War II, he created and organized, inconjunction with air force officer Philippe Tailliez and Frdric Dumas, an underwaterresearch unit to carry out technical experiments and laboratory studies indiving. In 1950 he founded Campagne Oceanographique Francaise. Also, in the resembling 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 channelize began. In thefour decades since, she has sailed literally around the world and has exploredmany of the planets major(ip) rivers. In collaboration with engineer JeanMollard, Cousteau designed the Diving disc 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 directed three experiments in saturation-diving techniquesC onshelf I off Marseille (1962), Conshelf II in the Red Sea (1963), andfinally Conshelf III (1965), near Nice, in which six men breathing 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 aauthor and documentarian. Jacques Cousteau has produced more than seventyfilms for television, films which arrest won numerous Emmys and other awards. Hehas also produced three full-length theatrical feature films, The SilentWorld, World Without Sun, and Voyage to the Edge of the World. Cousteau haswritten, in collaboration with various co-authors, more than fifty books,