Science: Voyage of the Trieste

Her name was the Trieste, after the troubled city whose funds helped build her, and she was about the strangest craft to sail the Tyrrhenian Sea since the time of Ulysses. Her skipper was an adventurer of 69 (Ulysses would have liked that), and her destination was one that Ulysses would have envied. The Trieste headed last week for the bottom of the sea, into the dark Tyrrhenian Trench to the west of southern Italy, where no ship steered by living men had ever gone before.

The Trieste is Professor Auguste Piccard's newest "bathyscaphe."* On...

Want the full story?

Subscribe Now

Subscribe
Subscribe

Learn more about the benefits of being a TIME subscriber

If you are already a subscriber sign up — registration is free!