Before NASA: The Incredible Story of Auguste Piccard

About this episode

This episode explores the incredible story of Auguste Piccard, a Swiss physicist who pioneered human exploration in both the stratosphere and the ocean's depths.

Before astronauts, before rockets, and decades before the space race… one man built a metal sphere, attached it to a balloon, and rode it to the edge of space. In this episode we explore the incredible story of Auguste Piccard, the Swiss physicist and explorer who pushed the limits of human exploration in two completely opposite directions: the stratosphere above Earth and the deepest trenches of the ocean. In 1931, Piccard became the first human to reach the upper stratosphere inside a pressurized gondola, witnessing the curvature of the Earth and a sky so dark it resembled space itself. But he wasn’t finished. Later in life he invented the bathyscaphe, a revolutionary deep-sea vessel that would eventually allow his son to descend nearly seven miles to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. From cosmic rays and balloon flights to deep-sea exploration and the limits of human survival, Piccard’s work helped shape the technology that would later lead to modern spacecraft and deep-ocean submersibles. This is the story of a man who helped humanity explore both the highest and lowest frontiers of our planet. Listen. Learn. Laugh. Question everything. Support the show & join The Skult…

People in this episode

Hosts: Brad Taylor, Brent Vantassel

Topics covered

• Auguste Piccard
• stratosphere
• deep-sea exploration
• human survival
• space technology

Keywords

• NASA
• balloon flights
• bathyscaphe
• Mariana Trench
• cosmic rays

Mentioned in this episode

Products: bathyscaphe

Books & works: Enter the Sofa King Chamber, Edge Of The World

Places: Earth, the Mariana Trench

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