Editing Jacques Piccard (section)

==''Ben Franklin'' mission==
On 14 July 1969, just two days before the [[Apollo 11]] launch, the ''[[Ben Franklin (PX-15)|Ben Franklin]]'', also known as the Grumman/Piccard PX-15 mesoscaphe, was towed to the high-velocity center of the [[Gulf Stream]] off the coast of [[Palm Beach, Florida]]. Once on site, the ''Ben Franklin'' with its six-man, international crew descended to {{convert|1,000|ft}} off of Riviera Beach, Florida, and drifted {{convert|1,444|mi}} north with the current for more than four weeks, surfacing near [[Maine]].<ref>Piccard 1971</ref>

[[File:Franklin crew.jpg|thumb|left|Crew members of the ''Grumman/Piccard PX-15'' / ''Ben Franklin'']]

The crew consisted of Jacques Piccard as the mission leader; Erwin Aebersold, another Swiss, as Piccard's handpicked pilot and main assistant to Piccard and project engineer during the Franklin's design and construction. [[Grumman]] selected a Navy submariner named Don Kazimir to be captain. The U.S. Navy Oceanographic Office sent Frank Busby to conduct a bottom survey along the drift track over the [[Continental Shelf]] and the [[Royal Navy]] sent Ken Haigh, an acoustic specialist, who studied [[underwater acoustics]] and performed sonic experiments up and down the water column throughout the mission. The sixth man was Chet May from [[NASA]]. His specialty was "man working in space". [[Wernher von Braun]] learned about the ''Franklin'' mission, visited the submarine in Palm Beach, and considered the mission a kind of analogue to a prolonged mission in space, such as on the forthcoming [[Skylab]]. He appointed May as a NASA observer to accompany the mission and study the effects of prolonged isolation on the human crew.<ref name="livingandworking">Benson, Charles Dunlap and William David Compton. ''[https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4208/contents.htm Living and Working in Space: A History of Skylab]''. NASA publication SP-4208.</ref>{{rp|139–140}} 

Named for the [[Benjamin Franklin|American patriot and inventor]] who was one of the first to chart the [[Gulf Stream]], the {{convert|50|foot|adj=on}} ''Ben Franklin'' was built between 1966 and 1968 in Switzerland for Piccard and the [[Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation]]. It has been restored and now resides in the Vancouver Maritime Museum in Vancouver, Canada.