This historic film “Thirty Days Beneath the Sea” profiles the mission of the mesoscaphe Ben Franklin, also known as the Grumman/Piccard PX-15. Built by Grumman Aerospace, Ben Franklin was a manned underwater submersible built in 1968. It was the brainchild of explorer and inventor Jacques Piccard who named the vessel after Franklin because he was the first person to chart the Gulf Stream. The research vessel was designed to house a six-man crew for up to 30 days of oceanographic study in the depths of the Gulf Stream. NASA became involved, seeing this as an opportunity to study the effects of long-term, continuous close confinement, a useful simulation of long space flights.

The Ben Franklin was built between 1966 and 1968 at the Giovanola fabrication plant in Monthey, Switzerland by Piccard and the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation headed by Donald B Terrana, then disassembled and shipped to Florida. The vessel is the first submarine to be built to American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) standards. With a design crush depth of 4,000 feet (1,200 m), it was designed to drift along at neutral buoyancy at depths between 600 and 2,000 feet (180 and 610 metres). The 130-ton ship has four external electric propulsion pods, primarily used for altitude trimming. It is powered by tons of lead batteries stored outside the hull. Its length is 48 feet 9 inches (14.86 m), with a beam of 21 feet 6 inches (6.55 m) and a height of 20 feet (6.1 m). Piccard insisted on 29 observation portholes, despite the objections of engineers over the inclusion of potentially fatal weak points.

The vessel began its voyage on July 14, 1969 — two days before Apollo launched — off Palm Beach, Florida (where the Gulf Stream has its fastest point), with Piccard as the mission leader and with NASA observer Chester “Chet” May on board. The sub descended to 1,000 feet off of Riviera Beach, Florida and drifted 1,400 miles north with the current for more than four weeks. Accompanied by surface support vessels, it resurfaced on August 14, 1,444 miles (2,324 km) away, 300 miles (480 km) south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

In addition to studying the warm water current which flows northeast off the U.S. East Coast, the sub also made space exploration history by studying the behavior of aquanauts in a sealed, self-contained, self-sufficient capsule for NASA.

During the course of the dive, NASA conducted exhaustive analyses of virtually every aspect of onboard life. They measured sleep quality and patterns, sense of humor and behavioral shifts, physical reflexes, and the effects of a long-term routine on the crew. The submarine’s record-shattering dive influenced the design of Apollo and Skylab missions and continued to guide NASA scientists as they devised future manned space-flight missions.

e Ben Franklin made a few more dives after 1969, including the first deep-sea dive for Robert Ballard, the discoverer of the wreck of the Titanic. After running aground on a reef in 1971, the Ben Franklin was sold to Vancouver businessman John Horton, only to languish for nearly three decades on the North Shore. In December 1999, with a sudden decision to either move or scrap the submersible, it was offered to the Vancouver Maritime Museum. After refurbishment, the submersible was placed in front of the museum.

The crew of the vessel included:

Jacques Piccard, the senior scientist on board, as well as the designer and engineer of the vessel. Frank Busby and Kenneth Haigh from the Naval Oceanographic Office. Chester May was a NASA scientist in charge of observing the crew. Don Kazimir was the Chief Pilot, and a former navy submarine officer. Erwin Aebersold was an associate of Jacques’ and co-pilot to Don.

Today, NASA continues the underwater tradition with the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations program — known by its acronym “NEEMO.” Today’s aquanauts are studying equipment and procedures that could prove useful as NASA pursues the new Vision for Space Exploration.

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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com