GRUMMAN PICCARD PX-15 SUBMERSIBLE BEN FRANKLIN GULF STREAM RESEARCH MISSION 32934

This historic film "Thirty Days Beneath the Sea" profiles the mission of the mesoscaphe Ben Franklin, also known as the Grumman/Piccard PX-15. Built by Grumman Aerospace, Ben Franklin was a manned underwater submersible built in 1968. It was the brainchild of explorer and inventor Jacques Piccard who named the vessel after Franklin because he was the first person to chart the Gulf Stream. The research vessel was designed to house a six-man crew for up to 30 days of oceanographic study in the depths of the Gulf Stream. NASA became involved, seeing this as an opportunity to study the effects of long-term, continuous close confinement, a useful simulation of long space flights. The Ben Franklin was built between 1966 and 1968 at the Giovanola fabrication plant in Monthey, Switzerland by Piccard and the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation headed by Donald B Terrana, then disassembled and shipped to Florida. The vessel is the first submarine to be built to American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) standards. With a design crush depth of 4,000 feet (1,200 m), it was designed to drift along at neutral buoyancy at depths between 600 and 2,000 feet (180 and 610 metres). The 130-ton ship has four external electric propulsion pods, primarily used for altitude trimming. It is powered by tons of lead batteries stored outside the hull. Its length is 48 feet 9 inches (14.86 m), with a beam of 21 feet 6 inches (6.55 m) and a height of 20 feet (6.1 m). Piccard insisted on 29 observation...