Russian deep-sea vehicles. Deep-sea manned vehicles MIR (9 photos)

There are many more places on earth about which we know less than about the vast expanses of space. We are talking primarily about unconquerable water depths. According to scientists, science has not yet actually begun to study the mysterious life at the bottom of the oceans; all research is at the beginning of the journey.

Every year there are more and more daredevils who are ready to perform a new record-breaking deep-sea dive. In the presented material I would like to talk about swims without equipment, with scuba gear and with the help of bathyscaphes, which have gone down in history.

Deepest human dive

For a long time, the French athlete Loïc Leferme held the record for freediving. In 2002, he managed to make a deep-sea dive to 162 meters. Many divers tried to improve this indicator, but died in the depths of the sea. In 2004, Leferm himself became a victim of his own vanity. During a training swim in the oceanic trench of Villefranche-sur-Mer, he dived to 171 meters. However, the athlete failed to rise to the surface.

The latest record-breaking deep-sea dive was made by Austrian freediver Herbert Nitzsch. He managed to descend to 214 meters without an oxygen tank. Thus, the achievement of Loïc Leferme is a thing of the past.

Record deep sea dive for women

French athlete Audrey Mestre set several records among women. On May 29, 1997, she dived as much as 80 meters on a single breath-hold, without an air tank. A year later, Audrey broke her own record, descending 115 meters into the depths of the sea. In 2001, the athlete dived as much as 130 meters. This record, which has world status among women, is assigned to Audrey to this day.

On October 12, 2002, Mestre made her last attempt in life, diving without equipment to 171 meters off the coast of the Dominican Republic. The athlete used only a special load, without oxygen cylinders. The lift was to be carried out using an air dome. However, the latter turned out to be unfilled. 8 minutes after the deep-sea dive started, Audrey's body was brought to the surface by scuba divers. The official cause of death of the athlete was noted as problems with the equipment for lifting to the surface.

Record scuba dive

Now let's talk about deep-sea scuba diving. The most significant of them was carried out by the French diver Pascal Bernabe. In the summer of 2005, he managed to descend 330 meters into the depths of the sea. Although it was originally planned to conquer a depth of 320 meters. Such a significant record was achieved as a result of a small incident. During the descent, Pascal's rope stretched, which allowed him to swim an extra 10 meters in depth.

The diver managed to successfully rise to the surface. The ascent lasted a long 9 hours. The reason for such a slow rise was the high risk of development, which could lead to respiratory arrest and damage to blood vessels. It is worth noting that to set the record, Pascal Bernabe had to spend 3 whole years in constant training.

Record dive in a submersible

On January 23, 1960, scientists Donald Walsh and Jacques Piccard set a record for diving to the bottom of the ocean in a manned vehicle. While aboard the small submarine Trieste, the researchers reached the bottom at a depth of 10,898 meters.

The deepest dive in a manned submersible was achieved thanks to the construction of the Deepsea Challenger, which took the designers 8 long years. This mini-submarine is a streamlined capsule weighing more than 10 tons and with a wall thickness of 6.4 cm. It is noteworthy that before being put into operation, the bathyscaphe was tested several times with a pressure of 1160 atmospheres, which is higher than the pressure that was supposed to affect the walls of the device on the ocean floor .

In 2012, the famous American film director James Cameron, piloting the mini-submarine Deepsea Challenger, conquered the previous record set by the Trieste device, and even improved it by plunging 11 km into the Mariinsky Trench.

:: Bathyscaphe

A bathyscaphe is a small underwater vessel designed to dive to extreme depths. Main difference underwater bathyscaphe from a submarine lies in its design: the bathyscaphe is equipped with a lighter spherical hull and a float, the walls of which are filled with a liquid whose mass is less than water, as a rule, it is gasoline. The movement of the underwater bathyscaphe is carried out due to the rotation of mushroom propellers driven by electric motors.

History of the creation of the bathyscaphe

The idea to build an underwater bathyscaphe first came from the Swiss scientist Auguste Piccard before World War II. He was the first to propose replacing cylinders with compressed oxygen with a float with a liquid whose mass is less than the mass of water. Pikaru's engineering idea was a success, and already

in 1948, the first prototype of the bathyscaphe was launched.

The creation of a device of this class was influenced by the need to study the bottom of seas and oceans at great depths. Classic submarines are only capable of descending to a certain limited depth. What’s remarkable is that the designers are able to build a fairly strong hull, even for a large submarine, that could withstand pressure at extreme depths. However, it is still impossible to solve another problem that prevents submarines from descending to a significant depth.

To float to the surface of the water, traditional submarines use compressed oxygen, which displaces water from the compartments. However, during a dive of more than one and a half thousand meters, under the influence of the gravity of the water, the oxygen in the cylinders loses its properties, in other words, it ceases to be “compressed”. There are submarines capable of descending to a depth of 2000 meters. Nevertheless,

The submersion depth of the bathyscaphe is much greater.

Bathyscaphe dive

A float filled with gasoline or other liquid allows the underwater bathyscaphe to float on the surface of the water and float up.

After the tanks are filled with water, the process of immersing the bathyscaphe to depth begins. In cases where the underwater bathyscaphe freezes due to excessive water density, a buoyancy fluid is released from the float to lower the vessel to the bottom. After this, the submersion process of the bathyscaphe resumes. Lowering the submersible to the bottom is not so difficult, but how to lift it back up? For this

Underwater bathyscaphes have special compartments filled with steel shot.

As mentioned above, the diving depth of the bathyscaphe is much greater than that of other underwater vehicles. Back in 1960, modified The bathyscaphe "Trieste" managed to dive to a record depth of 10919 meters. To the surprise of the ship's crew, even at such a depth they saw fish.

Another interesting fact regarding the submersion of the bathyscaphe: the first person to sink to the very bottom of the world's oceans is the well-known director James Cameron.

Our shipbuilders also have something to brag about. The Mir underwater bathyscaphe, designed by Russian engineers, sank to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. The submersion depth of the bathyscaphe was 4261 m. After this, the ship and its crew spent about an hour at the bottom of the coldest and most dangerous ocean on earth.

(GOA) for oceanographic research and rescue operations.

The fleet of the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences named after Pyotr Shirshov includes two deep-sea manned underwater vehicles of the "Mir" type: GOA "Mir 1" and "Mir 2". They were built in Finland by Rauma Repola in 1987. The devices were created under the scientific and technical guidance of scientists and engineers from the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The creation of the devices began in May 1985 and was completed in November 1987. In December 1987, deep-sea tests of the devices were carried out in the Atlantic at a depth of 6170 meters ("Mir 1") and 6120 meters ("Mir 2"). The devices were installed on the support vessel Akademik Mstislav Keldysh, built in 1981 in Finland and converted in 1987 to carry out work with deep-sea test devices.

GOA "Mir 1" and "Mir 2" are identical in design and are designed for a working diving depth of 6000 m. The total battery capacity of one device is 100 kW/h, which allows underwater operations to be carried out for 17-20 hours of continuous underwater cycle. In addition, this allows the installation of a large complex of scientific and navigation equipment on both devices.

The single-water speed of the Mir spacecraft is 5 knots. It uses water ballast for ballasting. Before the apparatus leaves the surface, sea water fills plastic main ballast tanks with a capacity of 1.5 cubic meters. m, which are blown with compressed air when the device reaches the surface after a dive. The buoyancy of the apparatus is regulated using a variable ballast system by receiving water into three durable spheres and pumping it out of the spheres with a high-pressure pump.

The body of the devices is made of martensitic, highly alloyed steel, with 18% nickel. The alloy has a yield strength of 150 kg per square meter. mm (for titanium - about 79 kg/sq.mm).

The length of the Mir apparatus is 7.8 m, width (with side engines) 3.8 m, height 3 m. The view from the habitable sphere of the Mir apparatus is provided by three windows: a central one with an internal diameter of 200 mm, and two side windows with a diameter of 120 mm. The position of the windows provides a wide viewing angle for the pilot and observers. The buoyancy reserve of the Mir apparatus at the bottom is 290 kg. Dry weight 18.6 tons. Life support capacity 246 people/hour. GOA "Mir" is equipped with navigation and scientific equipment, photo and video systems, manipulators, sampling devices, etc. The crew of the device consists of three people - a pilot, an engineer and a scientific observer.

The emergency rescue system of the device consists of a syntactic buoy released by the crew, with a Kevlar cable attached to it, which is made of high-strength carbon fiber - Kevlar, 7000 m long, along which half of the coupling is lowered (the same as a railway automatic coupler). It reaches the device, then automatic coupling occurs, and the device is lifted on a long power cable, 6500 m long, with a breaking force of about 10 tons.

In 1987-2005, 35 expeditions were carried out in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans using the Mir 1 and Mir 2 GOAs, of which nine expeditions were carried out to eliminate the consequences of the accidents of the nuclear submarines Komsomolets and Kursk. . The developed range of the latest deep-sea technologies and techniques made it possible to carry out long-term radiation monitoring on the Komsomolets nuclear submarine, which is located at the bottom of the Norwegian Sea at a depth of 1,700 meters, and to partially seal the bow of the boat. Together with various Russian scientific institutions, a methodology was developed that made it possible to conduct a detailed examination of the Kursk nuclear submarine, determine the cause of its accident and develop measures to eliminate the consequences of this accident.

In 1991 and 1995, with the help of Mir devices, studies were carried out on the hull of the Titanic, lying at a depth of 3800 meters. During the dives, unique filming was carried out, which was used to create feature and popular science films, including Titanica, Titanic, Bismarck, Aliens of the Deep, Ghost of the Abyss.

Film director James Cameron participated in the dives in 1995, who descended to the Titanic on the Mir apparatus 12 times.

In January September 2004, the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, together with the Fakel Federal State Unitary Enterprise, carried out a major overhaul of the Mir devices, including their complete disassembly, testing the strength of the hulls, partial replacement of elements, components and equipment, subsequent assembly and testing of the newly assembled devices. As a result, "Mir?1" and "Mir?2" received a class certificate from the international register "German Lloyd" until 2014.

On August 2, 2007, as part of the expedition "Arctic? 2007", the world's first descent of the deep-sea manned vehicles "Mir" was made at the point of the geographic North Pole to a depth of 4300 meters. During this unprecedented dive, a titanium Russian flag was planted at the bottom, and samples of soil and living organisms were taken from a depth of 4261 m. The achievements of this expedition were included in the Guinness Book of Records.

In 2008-2010, the scientific research expedition “Worlds on Baikal” took place: scientists on two deep-sea manned vehicles “World 1” and “World 2” studied the state of the reservoir’s ecosystem, animal and plant life, and tectonic processes at the bottom of the lake. Researchers have made a number of scientific discoveries, and also come closer to solving one of the historical mysteries. At the end of a series of dives in 2009, in the area of ​​the Circum-Baikal Railway, scientists discovered fragments of a railway carriage, as well as boxes with ammunition from the Civil War (1918-1921). Researchers suggested that this could be the train on which the “white” Admiral Kolchak exported the gold of the empire. In 2010, during the final dives in the same area, scientists found objects that looked like gold bars, but they were unable to bring the find to the surface.

During the "Worlds" expeditions, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, polar explorer, State Duma deputy Artur Chilingarov, Governor of the Irkutsk region Dmitry Mezentsev, President of Buryatia Vyacheslav Nagovitsyn, President of Mongolia Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, rock musician and band leader visited the bottom of Lake Baikal " Time Machine" Andrei Makarevich, writer Valentin Rasputin, film director, author of "Titanic" and "Avatar" James Cameron.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin dived to the bottom of the lake on August 1, 2009. In total, the “excursion” on the Mir 1 apparatus along the bottom of Lake Baikal took about 4 hours. During the dive, Putin contacted journalists. At that moment, "World 1" was at the deepest point of the southern part of the lake, 1395 meters. Putin admitted to reporters that he was somewhat surprised by the opacity of the water, calling it “plankton soup.”

James Cameron dived to the bottom of Lake Baikal on August 16, 2010, his birthday, and spent four and a half hours underwater. The maximum depth at which he found himself was 1380 meters.

In the summer of 2011, Russian deep-sea manned vehicles Mir 1 and Mir 2 will study Lake Geneva. The first dives are planned to begin in mid-June and end in mid-August.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

In recent years, quite a lot of research vehicles have appeared, both manned and autonomous. But the record for the deepest dive has been held since January 23, 1960, and belongs to an adventurer from Switzerland, a country that is not even landlocked.

Let's dive in! Let's dive in!

The oldest surviving literary sources describe dreams of deep-sea diving. However, until recently, a person could fall no lower than several tens of meters, and even then only for a few seconds.

The first deep-sea bathysphere was built in 1930. On it, William Beebe and Otis Barton reached a depth of 435 m. The device was a hollow steel cylinder, it weighed 2.5 tons and was connected to the mother ship using a cable.

Separate wires supplied air, electricity and communication. But the bathysphere did not have any devices for movement, and its depth was controlled from the mother ship, increasing or decreasing the length of the steel cable. The sphere was only 130 cm in diameter and could not remain under water for more than 3.5 hours. And most importantly, if the cable were to break, the device would simply drown.

Breakthrough

The breakthrough came when the self-propelled bathysphere, or “deep-sea boat,” was invented. Like its predecessor, it was a hollow steel ball where the crew was located.

But it also had a cylindrical float that made it possible to adjust the depth. The float contained gasoline, which is lighter than water, and ballast—several tons of gravel. When the submersible ran out of fuel, electromagnetic doors released the ballast and the device jumped to the surface.

The most famous bathyscaphe is Trieste. Its early versions dived to 3 km in the Bay of Naples in 1953. It was created by Swiss physics professor Auguste Piccard. His first love was aviation. In 1931, he made the first air flight into the stratosphere and reached an altitude of almost 15,837 m (according to Britannica, 16,916 m; TSB - 16,370 m - Note "PM"). But then he turned his gaze to the bottom of the sea.

In 1958, the US Navy purchased a second version of the Piccard, paying $250,000 for it. Expensive modifications were made, and the Trieste was back at sea. This time the target was the Mariana Trench. Its depth is 10,911 m (TSB - 11,022 m, Britannica - 10,911 m - PM's note), and this is the deepest point on the planet. Jacques Piccard, Auguste's son, and US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh made the record dive. Gasoline was pumped out of the float and the capsule sank. Steel ballast was also at the ready in case of an emergency ascent. A dull thud marked the end of the four-hour journey.

Water pressure at a depth of ten kilometers is more than 1 thousand atm. (or 110 million Pa). One of the windows could not stand it and cracked. Fortunately, this did not interfere with the trip.

Not too useful

Limited mobility, small portholes, and crowded interiors severely limited the Trieste's usefulness as a platform for scientific research. Besides the trip to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, Trieste completed only two important missions. In 1963, with his help, the remains of the Frasher nuclear submarine (Permit class), which sank with its entire crew at a depth of 2.5 km in Cape Cod Bay, were found and examined. Five years later, the US Navy lost another boat, the Scorpion. And Trieste again set off to investigate the causes of the tragedy. Since then, both the Navy and civilian researchers have built many different devices for deep-sea diving: unlike submarines, these vehicles emphasize depth rather than mobility.

Today, the Japanese claim that they own the deepest submersible vehicle (of those in operation) - the Shinkai, with a crew of three people. It was made at the Japanese Center for Marine Science and Technology. When studying the Japanese Trench, he descended to a depth of about six and a half kilometers.

BISHKEK, November 14 – Sputnik. Bathyscaphe "Mir-1", which participated in the underwater filming of James Cameron's film "Titanic", was delivered on Friday to the Kaliningrad Museum of the World Ocean, where it will become one of the main objects of the new exhibition "Depth".

“While the apparatus is not on an expedition, we persuaded the Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Oceanology to give it to us for temporary storage. As soon as it is needed, it will be taken out of here, transported to the ship “Akademik Mstislav Keldysh” and sent on an expedition,” said the director of the museum Svetlana Sivkova.

The operation to transport this large equipment (the bathyscaphe weighs more than 18 tons) to the museum across the city began in the morning. Special loaders and lifts ordered from the port took part in the “relocation” of the apparatus. He was loaded onto a special platform and transported, accompanied by traffic police officers. The museum moved it to a lower platform in order to almost manually place it in the museum building under construction.

Until now (in the days when it did not participate in expeditions), the deep-sea vehicle was stored in the hangars of the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAN) named after P. P. Shirshov. In order for the legendary device to be installed in the building, special industrial floors with high strength had to be poured. To roll out and roll the device into the room, the doorway was widened to four meters.

The most famous bathyscaphes in the world

The deep-sea manned submersibles "Mir-1" and "Mir-2" were built in Finland by Rauma-Repola in 1987. They were created under the scientific and technical guidance of scientists and engineers from the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In December 1987, deep-sea tests were carried out in the Atlantic at a depth of more than six thousand meters.

The devices were installed on the support vessel Akademik Mstislav Keldysh, which together with them conducted 35 expeditions to the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, nine of them to eliminate the consequences of the accidents of the nuclear submarines Komsomolets and Kursk.

In the early 1990s, with the help of Mir devices, films were shot on the legendary sunken ship Titanic, lying at a depth of 3.8 thousand meters, which brought the bathyscaphes great international fame. During the dives, the hull of the Titanic was examined, which during the accident collapsed into two parts, which sank to the bottom of the ocean at a distance of 600 meters from each other, unique filming was carried out, which became the basis of the Oscar-winning film.

For the first time in Russia, the Academy of Underwater Sciences and Arts of the United States presented its award - the "Underwater Oscar" - in the category "Science" to the head of the laboratory for the scientific operation of deep-sea manned vehicles of the institute, Doctor of Technical Sciences Anatoly Sagalevich. This is the world's most prestigious prize awarded for underwater work.

In August 2007, as part of the "Arctic-2007" expedition, the world's first descent of the deep-sea manned vehicles "Mir" was carried out at the point of the geographic North Pole to a depth of 4.3 thousand meters. During this unprecedented dive, a titanium Russian flag and a capsule with a message to future generations were installed at the bottom. The devices withstood a pressure of 430 atmospheres. The achievements of this expedition are included in the Guinness Book of Records.

"Mirs" made 60 dives at various points of Lake Baikal. In 2011, bathyscaphes made their first dive to the bottom of Lake Geneva, one of the largest but practically unexplored bodies of water in Europe.

Pearl of the collection

At the beginning of December, a new building will open at the Kaliningrad Museum of the World Ocean - “Fund storage”, in which, on 800 square meters, there will be an exhibition “Depth”, the pearl of the collection of which will be the deep-sea manned vehicle “Mir-1”.

“We plan that once a week hydronaut specialists will come to us to service the devices, because they still have to conduct deep-sea research. These specialists will be able to give tours of our new exposition and talk about the device,” added Sivkova.

Along with the bathyscaphe, one of the central objects of the exhibition will be one of the largest sperm whale skeletons in the world, stored in the museum. Its installation is already coming to an end. Collections of barometers, current meters, hydrophysical probes, instruments and equipment for underwater surveys, studying depths and optical properties, and deep-sea technology will also be presented here.