Science Focus
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Fifty years ago, in June 1964, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) commissioned the Deep Submersible Vehicle (DSV) Alvin. As one of the world's first manned deep ocean research vessels, it quickly ended up on some of the most critical and fascinating missions in naval research history. After several major retrofits over the years, the Alvin celebrates its 50th birthday this weekend with no plans to slow down.
The Alvin was named after Allyn Vine, a geo-physicist at WHOI who pushed the US to develop a manned submersible rather than rely on remote methods of deep-sea exploration. As the geophysics magazine Eos notes, Vine strongly supported sending real humans into the depths of the sea. “I find it difficult to imagine what kind of instrument should have been put on the Beagle instead of Charles Darwin,” the researcher said in 1957.
Alvin was designed by General Mills on a $498,500 contract. It was able to dive 6,000 feet (or about 2,000 meters) and contained a 6-foot diameter steel sphere for pilots and scientists. In one of its first missions in 1966, the submersible was used to search for a lost hydrogen bomb that was dropped when the plane carrying it crashed. Barely a decade later, in 1973, the steel personnel sphere on the Alvin was replaced with a titanium one, which extended its drive range to 12,000 feet (or 3,650 meters) and the Alvin set out to be one of the first vehicles to explore the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, some 3,000 meters down.
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