The Adventurers - The Piccards: To the Ends of the Earth

Documentary , Color 1997 , 52min

Biography , History

When Swiss physicist August Piccard designed a balloon and ascended into the stratosphere, he set a new world's altitude mark. The sixteen-hour excursion from Germany to Austria in 1931 was the first use of a pressurized cabin for a manned flight. Thirty years later, he and his son Jacques designed a submersible balloon, or bathyscaphe. When Jacques plunged into the ocean depths in the Trieste, it was man 's first successful dive into the abyss. Rare film of the balloon ascent and the spine-chilling recollections of Jacques offer a sensational look at these fearless explorers.
Expedition footage and first-person accounts offer a fascinating look at the Piccard family who were first to pilot a balloon into the stratosphere, descend to the deepest point on earth beneath the waves and live to tell about the experiences.