(light and playful music)
- You might imagine that by the start of the 20th century,
explorers would've been all over.
They had navigated all the world's oceans,
discovered continents, been through equatorial
tropical forest, they'd been to the North Pole
and the South Pole, been everywhere by then!
But let's see, where did they go?
- To the west!
- To the east!
- And the north! - Ohh!
- To the south!
- [Old Man] That's right. So what was left?
- Not much at all.
- Yeah well, then maybe they ought just stay home.
- Yeah, and play a game of cards.
- You're wrong.
There was still a very great deal to discover.
- Not to the west or east, but up!
- Or down, I bet.
- I happen to know about someone who went down deeper
and up higher than anyone else ever.
- He went up, he went down, who was he?
- I'll tell you that in a minute,
but let's start with going up.
It starts with, let's see.
Starts, where exactly does it begin?
Man begins in the year 1783 and
in the French village of Annonay,
with the two Montgolfier brothers.
- It's interesting how smoke always rises.
- Yes, and how clouds are just suspended in air.
- It has to be heat that always makes it go up.
- Then if we heat the air in a very large balloon,
I'm sure it would go up.
- Shall we try it?
(horn-heavy dramatic music)
(assorted shouts of encouragement)
- Oh!
- It works, hmm?
- Yes and let's try a bigger one.
- [Old Man] So in that same year
the first ascent of a Montgolfier.
With two passengers,
Pilatre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes.
Before long balloon flying became a popular sport.
Every one of these aeronauts tried to go
higher and higher.
But they found out that above 7,000 meters
you couldn't breathe and in 1875,
two men died from lack of oxygen
and no one tried to go higher.
That is until one day at the University of Brussels,
a Swiss professor...
(mysterious music)
- Huh?
- Now Mount Everest, the highest peak in the whole world,
rises 8,850 meters, almost impossible to breathe.
Another 12,000 meters is the stratosphere.
This height the air pressure drops
but the suns rays and cosmic waves are very powerful.
Alas, no one has ever gone there to investigate.
Yes, a question?
- Why not just go on a-
- Sir?
- [Professor] Yes.
- Well it's because of there not being
oxygen to breathe at that altitude, can't go up.
- Yes, I see ahem.
- What's going on?
- He's thinking, watch he's gonna forget all about us.
(professor mumbling)
- Here we are.
See with a metallic vessel, the air stays under pressure,
and so we might ascend to the stratosphere.
- It can't possibly work, it would surely develop leaks.
It would mean certain death.
- If the vessels well built, it would resist pressure.
- Well you'll never get me in that thing.
- Oh don't worry, nobody will ask you.
But I consider it an interesting idea.
- Such a thing will cost fortune.
- And Belgium will fund it in the interest of science.
- What exactly do you do with those glasses,
professor Piccard?
- It's a little something I invented.
This way up close I have good vision,
this way at a distance.
- Well with my glasses I see up close fine.
- Sometimes we have to be far seen.
I say we back this splendid idea of Piccard.
- You're really painting it black?
- Only half of it in black.
You see, Mr. Keefer, black absorbs heat,
but a bright metallic surface would reflect it.
When we're cold, we'll turn the black side to the sun,
and since it will absorb the heat, it's warm.
But if we're too hot, we will turn silver side to sun.
(playful music)
- You Bavarian, sir?
Have you permission to take off?
- To take what?
- To take off, you need a permit.
- I need a permit for this, Mr. Keefer?
- Well I don't, do you?
- Me? No.
- No permit?
Well then, no one goes in the sky.
What's that?
- That's a ballast. It's a lead.
We throw it overboard to lighten the cabin
and then we can go higher up.
- You toss out lead and drop it on people
and break their skulls and you think
that I'll let you fly away?
- What's going on here?
- There aint no permit and they're
gonna bomb us with lead.
That is not allowed.
- Here is your permit, you make take off.
- Come on Lou let's go quickly.
- Let her go, let her go.
- There she goes, hey!
(crowd cheering)
- You aren't obeying regulations.
You didn't fill out the forms,
all of you are under arrest.
- It should be on the way now.
- We're already in the air.
- Oh yeah.
2000 meters, we are rising fast.
Oh no, the insulate has broken, we're leaking air!
- I want to breathe and pretty soon
shouldn't we go down?
- No, I'll just plug the leak.
- 6,000 meters, 6500.
- Work.
- 9,000 meters.
- You better insert oxygen to increase the pressure.
- It's easier to breathe but it's much colder now.
- I'll just turn down cabin to put
the black side towards the sun.
We'll be good and warm.
The engine won't run, what's happening?
- That was we really needed.
Now it's snowing in the cabin.
The crystallization of water vapor.
- 12,000 meters, we're up now in the stratosphere.
- Throw out some ballast, we'll go even higher, higher!
- Boy it's hot, 25 Celsius.
We better the pull the operate the valves,
see if it works.
The hydrogen release valve is blocked,
no way now for us to get down.
- [Professor] We'll have to try and release the gas,
the balloon could burst at this height.
- Now we're over 15,000 meters high.
- No one has ever been this high.
- Yes but how do we get down?
We're prisoners of the sky, our times up.
- We wait until night time.
The balloon is in the bright sun
and absorbing heat and expanding as we go up.
It will deflate in the much colder air.
Let us hope it loses enough volume
to cause our descent.
Careful it's hot!
We're drifting to the south.
- The time is 8 in the morning and 15,800 meters.
That's nearly twice the height of the Himalayas.
39 degrees Celsius, we're roasting like a duck.
- Like a duck!
- And our waters gone.
- That's a bad sign.
- Six in the evening, it isn't as warm
as it was but now we only have a few hours of oxygen.
Let's hope that'll be enough.
- We're going down now.
- 19,000 meters but slow.
- 8:30 in the evening.
We're going down faster and faster.
9,000,
8,000.
I can't see anything, it's possible we might breathe again.
Throw out a ballast, we're going to crash!
Put on your helmet.
As soon as we touch down, empty the balloon fast.
It could be dangerous.
I hope this rope isn't stuck the way the other one is.
It's morning, you can come out now.
We'll go down to the valley.
- Why, we did it!
- Yes, whoa!
(crowd cheers)
- Promise me, you'll never risk
your life that way again, Auguste.
Think of our children.
- Yes Mary Anne I promise.
- Hey pop, when I grow up, can I go with you?
- Auguste Piccard was absent minded.
Naturally he'd forget the promise that he'd made.
And a short time later he would break his own record
going up nearly 17,000 meters in altitude.
My he made a new record going up,
but what about down?
Down like these glasses,
it was Piccard who designed them.
- So in our airtight cabin we attained an altitude
of nearly 17,000 meters, the world record.
- Sir?
- What?
- And down in the ocean.
What's the record for underwater descent?
- Excellent question.
The undersea trenches at the bottom of the ocean
are 10,000 meters deep.
I imagine the enormous pressure down there.
- Wow!
- According to my calculations,
it's a thousand kilograms per square centimeter,
that is enormous.
- 3000 pounds per square inch.
- A man would be completely crushed!
- Squashed like a bug.
- Yes I admit that the pressure will be immense
but I wonder.
- Now what's he up to?
- He's making his brain work.
(professor mumbling)
- A cabin shaped as a sphere would surely
be able to resist great pressure.
We'd be able to dive to a depth of 10,000 meters.
- Under all that pressure it'd be suicide.
I mean, it's too much!
It would crush a cabin like a beetle.
- Not necessarily.
Not if we built the cabin of a high gaged steel.
- Then it'll be too heavy.
It'll go down alright, but it might never come up.
- Yes it'll be heavy, but of the same as it was
in the atmosphere-
- It was filled with hydrogen!
You'd be squashed like a beetle, squished!
- Then I would put gasoline in it.
You know petro is lighter than water.
Like an underwater balloon.
(dramatic music)
- [Old Man] Though the project was held up by the war,
then in 1948...
- That canometer will trigger the fall of all
the cast iron bars at noon.
This will cause the Bathyscaf to rise.
And we must set it going before noon,
otherwise boom.
- Yes, yes of course we will.
There we are.
Everything's ready to make our first dive lieutenant,
tomorrow morning.
(mysterious music)
Set the right time.
- All that iron weighs one ton,
switch out the magnets, and the iron drops,
and the bathyscaf will rise,
automatically going up.
- I'm not remembering something.
I know it, I can feel it.
(clock ticking)
- I think that I was distracted,
I may have started the-
- What!
(crash)
- Uh oh.
- Lieutenant Gusteau, I am sorry about this.
I am always setting clocks, I suppose I-
- I suppose a habit of the Swiss.
Luckily the Bathyscaf is intact.
We'll begin tomorrow.
- I should be the one to make the first test.
Anyone want to go with me?
- Me!
- We can draw straws.
- It's me, it's me!
- Well I'll check to make sure it's in working order.
- This is pretty quite ingenious isn't it.
- Yes a diver has complete physical movement underwater.
- Everything's fine.
All aboard and take your places in the cabin.
Alright start the pump, go on.
Put in the petrol, the gasoline.
(splash)
- Check.
And mate.
- Oh, are we playing?
- Forget it!
- It's getting warm.
Look at the school of fish going by.
See little tiny ones.
- [Both] Ah!
- You sure you still haven't seen anything?
- No, nothing sir.
- They should be coming up about now.
- I spot a light though!
- Finally it's the Bathyscaf.
They're safe.
Careful, the lightest spark and they'll explode.
- Roll 'em.
- You're looking good professor.
That's it, pullover.
- Where's our antenna?
We'll have to do better.
Quickly, paper and pencil.
In fact I want two pencils.
Paper and two pencils please.
- You see Jack, we will encase the floater in steel,
and there inside we will have two reserves
as buckshot to release as ballast released as needed.
We'll carry at least ten tons of it.
- Right father, I'm sure this Bathyscaf
will make it down to a great depth, very very deep.
Ten kilometers underwater.
- Never, you'll get crushed, the pressures too great.
And your cabin will fill up with water.
There will be no way to come back up, you're crazy.
Anyone who tries is crazy.
- Yes I do believe I have heard all that before.
Let's get to work.
We'll have the new Bathyscaf built in Italy.
At the turn he still works.
- We are going to construct a new Bathyscaf
and we will go farther down than any man has ever gone.
- He professor, the sphere will release
the thousands thousands of tons of pressure
you believe me?
Millions, billions!
Well perhaps in thousands.
(inspirational music)
- How about you?
That's it, let's go.
- [Both] We'll break all our records
deep sea diving.
- Captain we're gonna show them!
- Going down one meter per second.
- Oh look, a giant squid.
- Hello Gesepy, is there any of my messages?
- Loud and clear professor.
- What's that
- Gesepy, trying to communicate with us.
Depth 1000 meters, hey looks like snow.
It's really millions of minute animals
that make up the massive plankton.
Switch off our spotlights for a moment.
Now it's at 500 meters.
Continue the descent, light the lamps!
3,000 meters deep, the bottoms not far now.
- I'm gonna release a little bit of ballast
to slow down our descent.
- Good idea, I'll switch on the sonar.
The sea bottom is 100 meters,
we're getting close!
Any second now we'll hit bottom.
Fast, lighten the load!
We're almost on the bottom, look at that!
- 3,500 meters deep, no mans ever been at this depth.
- 2,100 meters in the deep, all records are beaten.
We can go up top now.
We've set a record!
- Now drop a little ballast, we'll move naturally.
- You see it's possible to maintain life,
even at this depth.
Yes, even where there is no light at all.
The world's full of things to discover.
- Dad, it's time to go up.
The gasoline is cooling down and losing it's volume.
- You're right, throw out a little ballast.
- Where are they, where could they be?
They should have surfaced by now.
- Whoa whoa!
- Well we're up on the surface,
release the compressed air and clear the air lock.
- Whoa, oh no!
- 3,500 meters!
- We went down exactly 2,100 meters,
a record that will stand for a very long time.
- A record that no one can beat.
- Come in.
Now what's this?
It says Auguste Piccard and his son, Jack,
made a dive of 3,500 meters.
Now next objective, what about the place
that's deepest in the sea?
Yes, the Mariana's Trench.
- We have no more funds,
but the Americans want to buy the Trieste.
I'm staying on as pilot.
- Jack, go on accept it.
It'll be our only chance.
That is it'll be your best chance.
Well I'm not getting much younger.
- [Old Man] In the pacific ocean off the island of Guam,
down in the seabed is the deepest underwater point on earth.
It's called the Mariana Trench.
It's 11,000 meters down,
and the pressure under all that water is immense.
- Hey look at the sharks.
- They won't give us trouble.
I'll go and check the electrical circuits.
Why don't you go and get Lieutenant Donald Walsh.
- Lieutenant Walsh, Jack is here.
- Okay pal.
- Hey come on up, we'll all go down right away.
8:23 we begin the dive!
- Good luck!
- We're at descent, one meter per second.
We'll reach bottom at early afternoon.
- Everything okay, how did it go?
- We're doing okay, all systems functioning.
We're at 2,000 meters.
Continuing descent.
11:30 all systems functioning,
7000 meters slowing descent.
- 8002, now we're as deep as Everest is high.
- Hey now what was that?
- The pressure, it's buckling up the cabin,
paint is starting to flake off.
10,000 meters, I better slow us down.
- We're just 50 meters from the bottom.
40 going down 20, 15.
- Look there!
- Oh, a creature.
Living at this incredible depth,
that's incredible.
You realize Jack, this is over a pressure of
500,000 kilograms.
- 13th hour six minutes at the bottom.
- Gesepy, we're here!
We're all the way down.
- You kidding?
He can't hear a message.
- Yes, I hear you loud and clear, bravissimo!
- The sound takes 14 seconds to cover the distance.
Now it's getting cold, maybe we should go up.
- Well dump a little ballast and up we go.
- I had no radio contact within 13 hours and now
I think they may be lost.
- Hi!
- Bravo!
- We done did it!
Today's the 23 January 1960!
We two men descended 11,000 meters into the sea bed.
A record that will never be beaten!
- How come no one will beat you?
- Easy, because in all the seas
there's no greater depth than the one
we hit today.
- That's right children, that's right.
On earth you can't go deeper than 11,000 meters
and the Piccards were true explorers
because they opened up explorations
under the ocean.
And down in the oceans, what marvels there are.
There are undersea mountains, and volcanoes
and fantastic creatures living in boiling waters
heated from deep within the earth.
Sea monsters 20 meters long, living 2000 meters
down in the depths of the sea.
Oh yes children, it really is another world.