How was life in the underwater village of Cousteau? (13 photos + 1 video)

Jacques-Yves Cousteau was a real fan of his work: it was his world I must thank for the scuba gear and for the large-scale contribution to the study world ocean. But he always felt like he wasn't doing enough - Cousteau wanted to change the world, to leave his mark on history. And in 1962 he did something absolutely incredible.





A little about the researcher himself.

He is not just an inventor and author of documentaries. In during the Second World War, he took part in the Resistance and for subversive activities was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor.

He and Emilio Galliano invented scuba gear in 1943 to time to conduct sabotage on the water. This discovery, after the war, brought him substantial income and this made it possible for Cousteau to live without thinking about money and invest it in your amazing project.



Jacques-Yves with his wife on "Calypso"

The year 1950 came and Jacques-Yves bought the Calypso, which was already was written off. He converted it into a laboratory and since then, until his death in 1997, Cousteau became an underwater traveler. For his films, he received three Oscars, he was known in almost all corners of the planet, his word was weighty. But was in of his biography, a moment that could be described, well, perhaps in fantasy novels.

Cousteau and his team sank to the ocean floor, installed at home, where they lived, at the same time exploring the life around. They really became heroes, overcoming decompression sickness, driving away sharks and fighting heavy and unusual existence under water. The whole team believed in that they are on the threshold of the beginning of a new civilization, where the world ocean will be populated. Unfortunately, this project coincided with another the same scale, which found a greater response from people.

The first village was built in 1962, just shortly after. after the flight into space of Yuri Gagarin, well, it’s clear that the space Odyssey blocked the underwater one. Attention was not as much as she deserved.





The first underwater house was built in the Mediterranean - an ordinary metal barrel, the length of which was 5 meters, and diameter 2.5 meters. Cousteau and his friends, Claude Wesley and Albert Falco, called it "Diogenes", climbed into it and lived at a depth of 10 meters under water for a week.

They had a radio, TV, comfortable beds, food, library and they were constantly chatting on the radio with colleagues on the Calypso. Wesley and Falco swam around the house every day, carefully studying ocean floor, its inhabitants, and then returned to Diogenes to continue research activities. Within a week it became clear that such a life is possible and not as difficult as it seemed on land. cost continue the experiment.



Dive ConShelf 1

A new project, even more powerful, started in 1963. Conshelf 1 became the first underwater home, but ConShelf 2 was already underwater village. Six people and a parrot lived there on a permanent basis, and in guests regularly sailed people from the Calypso. Excellent hostel people carried away by one thing, outside of which all sorts of jellyfish scurried about, fish and divers.

For a new experiment, they chose the Red Sea, next to coast of Sudan. ConShelf 2 was a complex of four structures and it took 5 divers, 20 sailors and 2 ship. The plan was this: this is a full-fledged underwater village with corridors, locks, observatories and submarines. I had to slow down a bit ardor, but even this result amazed everyone!



Jacques-Yves with the team inside the first house

They decided to make the central building in the form of a starfish, from which had four "rays" and in the center was a large room. ConShelf 2 was also located at a depth of ten meters and residents "villages" could see the sunlight and swim quietly next to the house several hours without suffering from decompression.



Installing ConShelf 2

What was the main idea: it was necessary to understand whether they could scuba divers calmly descend to great depths and also calmly return to the underwater house. And as it turned out, it was absolutely really. On the surface, many would face a terrible death from a sudden change pressure when lifting, but underwater houses are goodsolved this important problem.



There was also an air hangar for a submarine. Cousteau team. After waking up and having breakfast, you could go down to three hundred meters deep, there to find dozens of unknown fish and organisms, then return for lunch and at the same time fix everything discovered and discuss it with colleagues. In the 60s it all looked like one of the stories Bradbury, but not about space, but about the ocean.



"Rocket"

And there was another building. "Rocket" was perhaps the most interesting throughout the project - located at a depth of 300 meters and its built to understand what exactly scuba divers might experience in very difficult living and working conditions underwater.

The building looked like a cell, not a house: very little space, stuffiness, high blood pressure, and instead of air, an experimental mixture oxygen, helium and nitrogen. Around impenetrable darkness and slowly swimming sharks in the windows. A real test of strength. Two volunteers who lived there for a week enjoyed the only in a way that was accessible to them: because of the mixture, their voices became funny and they often called "upstairs" to have fun and amuse their comrades.

The experiment turned out to be successful. The volunteers came back relatively healthy and the first thing they did was smoke a pipe, after which they collapsed to sleep.



By the way, the permanent residents of the village were a sports coach, engineer, teacher, biologist, customs officer, cook. That is, people who were no diving experience.

Cousteau and the team did everything to arrange their "experimental" quite comfortable conditions. They ate daily fresh fruits and seafood, pastries and canned food. They could even call Calypso and ask the chef some specific menu.

The ventilation pipes were so skillfully made that in "Starfish" had an excellent microclimate, which allowed the villagers don't give up cigarettes. Also, a hairdresser regularly swam to them and they took artificial sunbathing every day so as not to suffer from UV deficiency. Such a good vacation, isn't it? Chatting with comrades, reading books, and all sorts of underwater creatures. The parrot, by the way, also coped well with living under water, only occasionally coughing due to people smoking.

It turned out, by the way, one interesting and very unexpected fact: due to the high pressure, the wounds on the body overgrown in almost night, but the mustache and beard, on the contrary, noticeably slowed down their growth.



"World Without Sun"

ConShelf 2 was a real breakthrough. Cousteau's team called great interest of the world in the possible perspective of mankind, received "Oscar" for the documentary film "A World Without Sun. This is an hour and a half the work that was filmed throughout the experiment produced stunning effect.

This movie is the best to watch if you haven't seen it yet. seen. This is a documentary, but it was shot very professionally - underwater life is truly mesmerizing, and you want to see some scenes revise again and again.



Jacques-Yves with his son

Jacques-Yves was able to continue his experiments and in In 1965, the ConShelf 3 project was launched. It became the last major team development in the field of underwater life. It was ambitious and an exciting project head and shoulders above ConShelf 2.

A huge dome was placed at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, already on depth of one hundred meters. Six people, among whom was the son of Jacques-Yves Philip, lived in an underwater house for three weeks. Oceanauts not only lived there, they were engaged in a series of experiments that should serve as information for oil producing companies.

But, unfortunately, the ocean was resigned. government like eastern and western blocs decided to bet on space and the ocean lost interest. The next nail in the coffin of the project became sponsors - petrochemical corporations. They watched everyone three stages and decided that it is much easier and cheaper to use robots and divers than organize entire underwater villages for workers.



Ichthyander-66

After Cousteau, the possibility of resettlement of mankind under water others have also taken up. There were about 15 such projects in the world, but they were not lucky with fame, despite excellentfinancing.

In the USSR, for example, they launched Ikhtiandr 66. divers, by on their own initiative, built underwater housing and lived there for three days. 67 Ichthyander became a more serious project - the residence lasted two weeks, not only people, but also animals took part in it, and she herself the design was similar to the ConShelf 2.



Jules Undersea Lodge Hotel

Diving "with settlement" has become not only exploratory, but also entertaining.

Jules Undersea Lodge hotel today - the only underwater hotel. It was converted from an abandoned submarine base and for 30 years of existence it was visited by about 10 thousand people and many of them are just married couples who want to add extreme on your honeymoon.



On the one hand, it seems that Jacques-Yves Cousteau is just a dreamer, who wanted to create the impossible, and on the other - all those small, but important steps taken by him in this direction were quite successful. The desire to explore Mars has not advanced further than desire, but under water people not only move freely and long enough, but also how experiments have shown, they can live and even with relative comfort.

Let's see what will happen next.