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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
Still exploring after 50 years, Donald Walsh is shown here at the North Pole.
Donald Walsh grew up near San Francisco in the 1930s. Among his earliest memories is the mega-construction project he saw from his home in the Berkeley hills.
"Namely, the Golden Gate Bridge," he says. "And I used to watch the ships go out over the horizon. I was seven or eight years old and from that age on I really got keen at going to the sea and knowing about the ocean."
Early dream
Walsh graduated from the U.S. Naval1 Academy in 1954. A chance assignment in 1958 led him to the Trieste.
He tested the free-diving self-propelled submersible — one of only two in existence at the time — on increasingly deep dives off the California coast. He was told of a plan to take the bathyscaphe to the deepest part of the ocean, roughly 11,500 meters or deeper than Mt. Everest is high.
US NHHC
The Trieste right before her dive to 35,800 feet in the Challenger Trench2 in the Pacific Ocean near Guam.
"That really got my attention because I knew I was going to be a part of it," says Walsh.
The Trieste is now on permanent display at the Naval Museum in Washington. The bathyscaphe is over 16 meters long, and its gasoline-filled flotation chamber3's deck, rails, and conning4 tower make it look a bit like a submarine.
"Basically, it's an underwater balloon. You've got two parts to it: You've got the balloon here — which is this long cylindrical6 object — and that's filled with a lighter-than-water substance, which is aviation gasoline," Walsh explains. "Oil floats on water, and so you get the buoyancy or lift. Then, beneath the balloon you have a cabin for the fragile humans."
History-making dive
That cabin is a 14-ton spherical7 steel capsule only two meters in diameter, with a single, half-meter-wide circular plastic window for viewing. There is just enough room for two people. Walsh was joined on Trieste's historic dive by co-pilot Swiss scientist Jacques Piccard — whose father, Auguste Piccard, had designed the craft.
Lt. Don Walsh (left) and Jacques Piccard (center) in cramped8 quarters inside Trieste's chamber on January 23, 1960.
On Jan. 23, 1960, the two men took the Trieste to the deepest point in the Pacific Ocean's Mariana Trench, a ravine called Challenger Deep.
The success of that mission opened the door for deep sea exploration.
Walsh grabbed an opportunity that others would later follow. "We do see bits of our DNA9 all over in today's underwater vehicles, both manned and unmanned, because [of] the things that we developed. Remember, everything we did was a first, not because we were pioneers or inventors, but it is literally10, necessity is the mother of invention. We needed something, we had to invent it."
Donald Walsh in front of the Russian Mir Submersible after diving to the World War II German battleship Bismarck.
Distinguised career
Over his long naval career, Walsh served in both the Korean and Vietnam wars, commanded a submarine and worked as a policy advisor11 and assistant to the secretary of the Navy.
When he retired12 from the Navy in 1975, he accepted a position at the University of Southern California where he founded and directed the Institute for Marine5 and Coastal13 Studies and was a professor of ocean engineering.
Walsh spent eight years in academia. The retired Navy captain continued to pursue his passions as a scuba14 diver, private pilot and explorer, participating in dozens ocean dives and expeditions to the polar regions.
Don Walsh is given the Hubbard Medal by National Geographic15.
Still exploring
Exploration, he says, has been central to his life.
"Exploration is curiosity acted upon," Walsh says. "People can look at things and be curious about them, but if you are an explorer you want to know why and how and maybe develop an experiment to test the hypothesis." He says in his life, "It [has] always being able to look around the next corer and see what's going on."
Still vibrant16 at 78, Walsh lives on the Oregon coast and runs his own consulting business.
He was in Washington recently to pick up two awards — the Navy Distinguished17 Public Service Medal and the Hubbard Award from National Geographic, the Society's highest honor given for distinction in exploration, discovery and research.
No human has returned to the deepest part of the ocean, although remotely operated vehicles have.
Walsh applauds those advances in technology, but laments18 that most of the world's deep oceans remain unexplored and that only a handful of vessels19 — manned or unmanned — exist to do the job.
1 naval | |
adj.海军的,军舰的,船的 | |
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2 trench | |
n./v.(挖)沟,(挖)战壕 | |
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3 chamber | |
n.房间,寝室;会议厅;议院;会所 | |
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4 conning | |
v.诈骗,哄骗( con的现在分词 );指挥操舵( conn的现在分词 ) | |
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5 marine | |
adj.海的;海生的;航海的;海事的;n.水兵 | |
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6 cylindrical | |
adj.圆筒形的 | |
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7 spherical | |
adj.球形的;球面的 | |
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8 cramped | |
a.狭窄的 | |
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9 DNA | |
(缩)deoxyribonucleic acid 脱氧核糖核酸 | |
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10 literally | |
adv.照字面意义,逐字地;确实 | |
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11 advisor | |
n.顾问,指导老师,劝告者 | |
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12 retired | |
adj.隐退的,退休的,退役的 | |
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13 coastal | |
adj.海岸的,沿海的,沿岸的 | |
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14 scuba | |
n.水中呼吸器 | |
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15 geographic | |
adj.地理学的,地理的 | |
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16 vibrant | |
adj.震颤的,响亮的,充满活力的,精力充沛的,(色彩)鲜明的 | |
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17 distinguished | |
adj.卓越的,杰出的,著名的 | |
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18 laments | |
n.悲恸,哀歌,挽歌( lament的名词复数 )v.(为…)哀悼,痛哭,悲伤( lament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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19 vessels | |
n.血管( vessel的名词复数 );船;容器;(具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的)人 | |
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