CONTINUITY IN THE SCIENTIFIC ADVENTURE



Never before has one family had such an impact on the world of exploration as Auguste, Jacques and Bertrand Piccard. In this dynasty, one has been inventing and exploring for three generations: the pressurized capsule and the first flight in the stratosphere, the bathyscaphe and the absolute deep-sea diving record, the first non-stop, round-the-world, balloon flight. As author Jacques Lacarrière notes so judiciously: "The three of them combine man's maddest dreams, to become fish or bird".

Solar Impulse stands squarely in the middle of this ongoing traditional path of exploration, adventure and scientific development.
Auguste Piccard

Auguste opened the way to modern aviation and to the conquest of space, by inventing the principle of the pressurized cabin and the stratospheric balloon. With his first ascension into the stratosphere (to an altitude of 15,780 and then 16,201 meters in 1931 and 1932), to study cosmic rays, he became the first man to see the Earth's curvature with his own eyes. Applying the principle of his stratospheric balloon to the exploration of the ocean depths, he invented and built a revolutionary submarine, which he called the Bathyscaphe. While diving with his son Jacques to 3,150 meters in 1953, he became the man of extremes, the one who had both flown the highest and dived the deepest.
Jacques Piccard

Jacques made several record-breaking dives with Auguste, before becoming himself the man to have dived the deepest in the world, reaching a depth of 10,916 meters in the Mariannes Abyss, the deepest point in the oceans. While discovering life at that depth, and also verifying the existence of marine currents between the depths and the surface, this historic dive above all served to do away with the idea, which was common at the time, that one could get rid of highly toxic waste by dumping it in marine abysses. Following up his father's work, Jacques built the first tourist submarine. Then he explored the Gulf Stream with another mesoscaphe of his invention, in a drifting dive which lasted a month and also served, in collaboration with NASA, to prepare the Space Lab missions.
Bertrand Piccard

Bertrand was to also become an explorer, but first of all of the interior world. He became a psychiatrist, specializing in hypnotherapy. A pioneer of free flight and ULM in Europe, he showed a passionate interest in the study of human behaviour in extreme situations, before getting involved with ballooning. He won the first transatlantic balloon race, before launching the Breitling Orbiter project. As captain of the three attempts, Bertrand succeeded with the Briton, Brian Jones, in making the first non-stop, round-the-world balloon flight and, at the same time, setting the record for the longest flight in the history of aviation, both in time and in distance. From now on, the Breitling Orbiter 3 capsule is on display in the main hall at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, along with the Apollo 11 capsule and the airplanes flown by the Wright brothers, Charles Lindbergh and Chuck Yeager.

The full circle is completed with his entry in the Larousse after his grandfather and father. Following what one has described as the last great adventure of the 20th century, Bertrand became one of the most sought after conference speakers, developing his humanist vision of the adventure of life. However, he is also extremely concerned about people most in need, which explains why he has founded and presides over the humanitarian Winds of Hope Foundation and has been nominated as a goodwill ambassadors of the United Nations.

Bertrand's web site: www.bertrandpiccard.com