SOI congratulates Education Team Member Don Walsh on the Fifty-year Anniversary of his historic and pioneering voyage to land the Trieste, with Jacques Piccard, at the deepest ocean floor!
Early on the morning of January 23, 1960, in the rough Pacific sea, United States Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh and Swiss engineer and oceanographer Jacques Piccard lowered themselves through the narrow opening into the cabin of the bathyscaphe, Trieste. As Walsh and Piccard watched the cabin door close and all natural light disappear, they were unaware of what might await them at the bottom of the ocean. Walsh piloted the Trieste toward the absolute darkness of Challenger Deep.
At 10,924 meters (35,840 feet), the pressure is roughly eight tons per square inch. The trench was believed to contain only skeletons, yet with the aid of Trieste’s lamps, Walsh and Piccard witnessed marine life. The Trieste landed on the ocean floor. When it surfaced nearly nine hours later, the Trieste had become the first vessel to reach the deepest part of the Earth’s ocean.
The record set fifty years ago remains the only manned mission to reach the deepest part of the Earth’s ocean, a unique scientific achievement and an amazing accomplishment in exploration.
Congratulations Don!
DON WALSH, PhD
Students on Ice Education Team Member
Don Walsh is an explorer, oceanographer and lecturer. Enlisting in the U.S. Navy in 1948, he graduated from Annapolis in 1954. During a 24 year naval career he spent 14 years at sea, mostly in submarines including command. At retirement he held the rank of Captain. Don’s polar experience began with trips to the Arctic in 1955 and the Antarctic with the Navy’s Deep Freeze in 1971. He has worked at both North and South Poles and is eligible to wear the Antarctic Service Medal. The Walsh Spur (near Cape Hallett) was named for him in recognition of his contributions to the U.S. Antarctic Research Program.
Don may be best known for making oceanographic history in 1960 with Jacques Piccard when they dove 10,924 meters (35,840 feet) down in the Navy Bathyscaph Trieste to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, deepest place in the world ocean. For this historic descent, never duplicated since, Walsh was decorated by President Eisenhower at the White House.
Don is the Author of over 150 articles and papers, and has been an advisor for the White House, NOAA and NASA. He was appointed by Presidents Carter and Reagan to the U.S. National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere, was a member of the Law of the Sea Advisory Committee for the U.S. Department of State, and served as a member of the Marine Board of the U.S. National Research Council from 1990 to 1993. In 2001 received the Explorers Club highest award, The Explorer’s Medal.