Jacques Cousteau Developed, with Émile Gagnan, the First Aqualung in 1943. for the Next

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Jacques-Yves Cousteau, born in Saint-Andre-de-Cubzac, France, on June 11, 1910, explored the depths of the ocean and educated the world on what he found there. Being an environmentalist, Cousteau strove to persuade people to take care of the Earth, especially the oceans.

Jacques Cousteau developed, with Émile Gagnan, the first aqualung in 1943. For the next 50 years, he explored the world's oceans.

Early Years

Cousteau's interest with the sea began when he was a child. Although he suffered from poor health, he became an avid swimmer. Throughout his youth, he explored the bottoms of pools and lakes and practiced holding his breath underwater. Breathing underwater would become a challenge for Cousteau to solve later in life.

Cousteau graduated from high school in 1929, and in 1930 he joined the French Navy. After completing his mandatory world tour with the navy, Cousteau decided he wanted to become a naval aviator and began training for it. Unfortunately, he was involved in a serious car accident that ended his hopes of becoming a flier. The accident did not end his naval career, however; he went to sea instead.

The Aqualung

Cousteau enjoyed exploring the sea and wanted to examine what was below its surface. Remembering lessons learned in his youth about breathing underwater, he knew he had to develop a breathing apparatus if he was to stay underwater for longer periods of time.

Since the sixteenth century, inventors had been trying to meet the challenge of breathing underwater for long periods of time. Various apparatuses were invented for meeting this challenge. One such apparatus was a head-piece attached to a long breathing tube, but the tube was awkward to wear because it did not allow divers to dive very deep, and it was heavy. Another apparatus was a tank of oxygen not unlike today's aqualung . The early oxygen tank could not compress and regulate air the way it was needed for deep-sea diving. The air pressure in a diver's lungs has to be the same as the water pressure acting upon the diver's body.

Dr. Christian Lambertsen designed an apparatus for the United States military in 1939 that he called the "Self-Contained Underwater Oxygen Breathing Apparatus." The military called it "SCUBA."

However, scuba gear proved useful only for shallow dives. Cousteau wanted the freedom to explore the ocean at great depths but knew the available equipment would not allow him to make such dives, because he had experimented with these traditional breathing apparatuses. He joined French engineer Émile Gagnan in designing a breathing apparatus that would appropriately regulate air pressure at varying water depths.

In 1943, after several experiments, Cousteau and Gagnan finally invented the demand regulator, solving the problem of equalizing air pressure in the lungs with the water pressure acting upon the diver's body. They attached the regulator to three cylinders of air. The complete set of equipment was called the "aqualung" and would enable divers to dive deeper for longer periods of time. Through this accomplishment, Cousteau and Gagnan had modernized scuba diving. Cousteau could now explore the depths of the ocean more freely. Eventually he would record and film what he saw below the ocean's surface and share his findings with both the scientific community and the general public.

1.  Why was Cousteau so important in the field of ocean exploration?

2.  What was the problem with earlier underwater breathing apparatuses?

3.  What did the new Aqualung help Cousteau to do? How was this important for ocean exploration?