DSV Alvin

Alvin (DSV-2) is a manned deep-ocean research submersible owned by the United States Navy and operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. The vehicle was built by General Mills' Electronics Group in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Named to honor the prime mover and creative inspiration for the vehicle, Allyn Vine, Alvin was commissioned on 5 June 1964. The submersible is launched from the deep submergence support vessel RV Atlantis (AGOR-25), which is also owned by the U.S. Navy and operated by WHOI. The submersible has made more than 4,400 dives, carrying two scientists and a pilot, to observe the lifeforms that must cope with super-pressures and move about in total darkness, as well as exploring the wreck of Titanic. Research conducted by Alvin has been featured in nearly 2,000 scientific papers.

Design

Alvin was designed as a replacement for bathyscaphes and other less maneuverable oceanographic vehicles. Its more nimble design was made possible in part by the development of syntactic foam, which is buoyant and yet strong enough to serve as a structural material at great depths.

Bathyscaphe Trieste II

Trieste II (DSV-1) was the successor to Trieste—the United States Navy's first bathyscaphe purchased from its Swiss designers. The original Trieste design was heavily modified by the Naval Electronics Laboratory in San Diego, California and built at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard. Trieste II incorporated the original Terni, Italian-built sphere used in Trieste, after it was made redundant by the new high-pressure sphere cast by the German Krupp Steelworks. The Trieste sphere was suspended from an entirely new float, more seaworthy and streamlined than the original but operating on identical principles. Completed in early 1964, Trieste II was placed on board USNS Francis X. McGraw (T-AK241) and shipped, via the Panama Canal, to Boston.

Commanded by Lt Comdr. John B. Mooney, Jr., with co-pilot Lt. John H. Howland and Capt. Frank Andrews, Trieste II conducted dives in the vicinity of the loss site of Thresher—operations commenced by the first Trieste the year before. She recovered bits of wreckage, positively fixing the remains as that of the lost Thresher, in September 1964.

Bathyscaphe Trieste

Trieste is a Swiss-designed, Italian-built deep-diving research bathyscaphe, which with her crew of two reached a record maximum depth of about 10,911 metres (35,797 ft), in the deepest known part of the Earth's oceans, the Challenger Deep, in the Mariana Trench near Guam in the Pacific. On 23 January 1960, Jacques Piccard (son of the boat's designer Auguste Piccard) and US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh achieved the goal of Project Nekton.

Trieste was the first manned vessel to have reached the bottom of the Challenger Deep.

Design

Trieste consisted of a float chamber filled with gasoline (petrol) for buoyancy, with a separate pressure sphere to hold the crew. This configuration (dubbed a bathyscaphe by the Piccards), allowed for a free dive, rather than the previous bathysphere designs in which a sphere was lowered to depth and raised again to the surface by a cable attached to a ship.

Trieste was designed by the Swiss scientist Auguste Piccard and originally built in Italy. His pressure sphere, composed of two sections, was built by the company Acciaierie Terni. The upper part was manufactured by the company Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriatico, in the Free Territory of Trieste (on the border between Italy and Yugoslavia); hence the name chosen for the bathyscaphe. The installation of the pressure sphere was done in the Cantiere navale di Castellammare di Stabia, near Naples. Trieste was launched on 26 August 1953 into the Mediterranean Sea near the Isle of Capri. The design was based on previous experience with the bathyscaphe FNRS-2. Trieste was operated by the French Navy. After several years of operation in the Mediterranean Sea, the Trieste was purchased by the United States Navy in 1958 for $250,000.

DSV Turtle

Turtle (DSV-3) is a 16-ton, manned deep-ocean research submersible owned by the United States Navy. It is sister to Alvin (DSV-2), and also an Alvin class Deep Submergence Vehicle. The Turtle was retired from active service in 1998. It now resides at the Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, Connecticut

The Turtle was designed to dive to 6000 feet. When DSV-2 Alvin installed a new titanium hull, the Alvin steel hull was installed in the Turtle. The Turtle depth rating was then increased to 10,000 feet. It has a hull 2 inches thick, and a hatch about 3-1/2 inches thick held in place by the pressure of the water above it (it is tapered, narrower inward). The Alvin-class DSV's were designed to replace older DSV, such as the less maneuverable Trieste-class bathyscaphes.

Alvin class DSV

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Alvin

Alvin may refer to:

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List of Tales of Xillia characters

Tales of Xillia is a Japanese role-playing game released for the PlayStation 3 on September 7, 2011 in Japan. The game was localized in North America on August 6, 2013 and Europe on August 9, 2013. Its sequel Tales of Xillia 2 was released on November 1, 2012. The protagonists in Tales of Xillia are designed by Mutsumi Inomata and Kōsuke Fujishima. The new protagonist, Ludger Will Kresnik, in Tales of Xillia 2 is designed by Daigo Okumura. The world of Tales of Xillia was divided in two parts by Maxwell; the two parts are Rieze Maxia and Elympios. Rieze Maxia consists of two countries, Auj Oule and Rashugal. After the events of Tales of Xillia, Rieze Maxia is united under one ruler and the barrier separating Rieze Maxia and Elympios no longer exists, allowing the two sides to start diplomatic relations and trading.

In Tales of Xillia, Jude Mathis meets and accompanies Milla Maxwell who intends to destroy a weapon called the Lance of Kresnik due to it being powered by a spyrix; a power source which absorbs spirits to create power. Tales of Xillia 2 takes place a year later and follows Ludger Will Kresnik who is hired by Spirius Corporation to destroy parallel dimensions because the spirit Origin is unable to sustain the abundance of souls. In order to destroy alternative universes, he must destroy the divergence catalyst which can reside within the object or living being whom caused a point of divergence.

Alvin (horse)

Alvin is a champion trotting horse. He was foaled 1885, and died in 1927 at the age of 42.

Bred in Ontario, Canada. Alvin took his lifetime record of 2:11 in 1893 at Buffalo, New York, becoming the fastest ever Canadian-bred trotter. At the end of his career, he was exported to Russia to become a sire.

Alvin was inducted into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 2000.

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