Jacques-Yves Cousteau

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Jacques-Yves Cousteau (11 June 1910 – 25 June 1997) was a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist, filmmaker and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water. He developed the aqua-lung, pioneered marine conservation and was a member of the Académie française.

Cousteau was born in Saint André de Cubzac, France and died in Paris, France. He is generally known in France as le commandant Cousteau ("Commander Cousteau"). Worldwide, he was commonly known as Jacques Cousteau or Captain Cousteau.

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Personal history

Jacques-Yves Cousteau was born in Saint André de Cubzac to Daniel Cousteau (a lawyer) and Elizabeth Cousteau.

He died on 25 June 1997 aged 87 of a heart attack while recovering from a respiratory illness. He is buried in the Cousteau family plot at Saint-André-de-Cubzac Cemetery, Saint-André-de-Cubzac, France.

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Early life

In 1930, Cousteau was admitted to the École Navale (Naval Academy) in Brest and became a gunnery officer of the French Navy, which gave him the opportunity to make his first underwater experiments. He was training to become a pilot, but a serious car accident ended his aviation career. In 1936 he tested a model of underwater eyeglasses, perhaps the ancestors of modern diving masks.

In 1937 he married Simone Melchior. He took part in World War II, and during the conflict he found the time to be co-inventor, with Emile Gagnan, of the first type of SCUBA diving equipment, the aqualung in 1943. Among the things that prompted him to develop efficient air-breathing diving free-swimming diving gear, were two oxygen toxicity accidents that he had earlier with rebreathers.

After WWII, while still a naval officer, he developed techniques (including forming an unofficial clearance diver unit using his aqualungs) for minesweeping of France's harbors. He also explored shipwrecks.

He explored a deep flooded cave at Vaucluse in France; during this he was caused extra difficulties because he had relied on a previous report by a standard diver who had dived there, but that previous report proved to be very inaccurate or complete fiction.

During this he made an underwater film called Épaves (Shipwrecks). While planning to make it, he found that under postwar shortages, unexposed movie film was impossible to buy, so his wife had to make movie reels by gluing together end-to-end dozens of small short unexposed film reels intended for children's toy cameras. Showing this film proved vital in persuading the French Navy to make official his unofficial diving capsule.

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Exploration on the Calypso

In 1950 shortly after his 40th birthday Loel Guinness (who was named the president of the French Oceanographic Campaigns) bought the ex-Royal Navy minesweeper Calypso when it was doing service as a ferry between Malta and Gozo. Guinness leased it to Cousteau for a symbolic one franc a year.

In the Calypso Cousteau visited the most interesting waters of the planet, including some rivers. During these trips he produced many books and films. Cousteau won three Oscars for The Silent World (1956), The Golden Fish, and World Without Sun (1964), as well as many other top awards including the Palme d'Or in 1956 at the Cannes Film Festival. His work did a great deal to popularize knowledge of underwater biology and was featured in the long-lived documentary television series The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau which began in 1968.

In the mid-1950s, Cousteau had worked with Luis Marden aboard the Calypso, in which they pioneered new techniques in underwater photography. In 1963, along with Jean de Wouters, Cousteau developed the underwater camera named "Calypso-Phot" which was later licensed to Nikon and became the "Calypso-Nikkor" and then the Nikonos. Together with Jean Mollard, he created the SP-350, a two-man submarine that could reach a depth of 350 m below the ocean's surface. The successful experiment was soon repeated in 1965 with two submarines that reached 500 m depth.

In 1957, Cousteau was made director of the Oceanographic Museum in Monaco, created the Underseas Research Group in Toulon, was the leader of the Conshelf Saturation Dive Program (long-term immersion experiments, the first manned undersea colonies) and was one of the few foreigners who has been admitted to the American Academy of Sciences.

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Marine conservation

Cousteau's popularity was increasing. In October 1960, a large amount of radioactive waste was going to be discarded in the sea by EURATOM. Cousteau organized a publicity campaign which gained wide popular support. The train carrying the waste was stopped by women and children sitting on the railway, and it was sent back to its origin. The risk was avoided. During this, a French government man had said falsely to a newspaper that Cousteau had approved the dump; Cousteau managed to get the newspaper to issue a correction.Template:Citation needed

In November 1960 in Monaco an official visit by the French president Charles de Gaulle turned into a debate on the events of October 1960 and on nuclear experiments in general. The French ambassador already had suggested that Prince Rainier avoid the subject, but the president allegedly asked Cousteau in a friendly manner to be kind toward nuclear researchers, and Cousteau allegedly replied: "No sir, it is your researchers that ought to be kind toward us." During this discussion, Cousteau realized that the reason for French experiments and research was American refusal to share its atomic secrets with its allies.Template:Citation needed

In 1973, along with his two sons, and Frederick Hyman who was the first President, he created the Cousteau Society for the protection of ocean life; it now has more than 300,000 members.

In 1977, together with Peter Scott, he received the UN international environment prize.

In 1985 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Ronald Reagan.

In 1992 he was invited to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the United Nations' international conference on environment and development, and then he became a regular consultant for the UN and the World Bank.

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Legacy

Cousteau liked to call himself an "oceanographic technician". He was in reality a sophisticated lover of nature, especially that of the sea. His work allowed people of all continents to visit life under the ocean's surface and explore through television the resources of the "blue continent."

The works that Cousteau produced also created a new kind of scientific communication that caused some criticism by formal academics. The so-called divulgationisme, a simple comprehensible form of sharing scientific concepts, was soon used for other disciplines too and became one of the most important and appreciated characteristics of modern TV broadcasting. The documentary information found in Cousteau's words form a linear scheme to follow.

Now Cousteau's figure is admired, beloved worldwide by many who love the sea, and regarded as a symbol of adventure, nature, and exploration.

Cousteau's son, Jean-Michel, and grandson, Fabien Cousteau, are also oceanographic explorers and filmmakers. Fabien Cousteau studied sharks in their natural habitat with a specially constructed shark-shaped submarine. Jean-Michel Cousteau is filming a new documentary series to be released on public television in the United States in 2006.


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See also

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External links

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