I have been reading with interest about Gary Power's Randall Model 8 here on the forum and when going to Wikipedia to try to learn more, I found out about Gus Grissom's Randall knife. Being a relatively new Randall collector, there is a lot more that I don't know than I do. I knew Bo Randall and Major Gordon Cooper designed the Astro knife to go into space, but I just learned that Gus Grissom's Astro spent 40 years at 15,000 ft. at the bottom of the ocean in the Mercury space capsule. What I read is that after 40 years it was still serviceable after cleaning and now in the Smithsonian. Maybe some the newbies will find this as interesting as I did. Anybody that could pull up a picture I would be grateful.
Thanks PJ

Here you go.

Thanks Adam.

Time to give a bump to an old thread.

In 1999, Curt Newport found and recovered Gus Grissolm's Mercury space capsule Liberty Bell 7. As you know, he also recovered Grissom's Randall Model 17 Astro knife, which was still in pretty decent shape considering its immersion in salt water for more than 35 years.

In 2001, I participated in the follow up expedition to the same area with Curt Newport and a few other well known explorers to investigate one of the other targets Newport found on the 1999 expedition. It turned out that we discovered the world's deepest wooden shipwreck, a slave ship sunk in a hurricane in June 1810, less than one mile away from where Liberty Bell 7 came to rest. I made a dive to the wreck, at a depth of 16,000+ feet, during the expedition, and I was surprised to discovery how remarkably well preserved the wreck was. Among other things, we found an intact set of pistols and other metal objects (including 1,600 Spanish "pieces of eight").

Anyway, Don Walsh and I just published an article about what we called the "Atlantic Sands" expedition in the new issue of "DIVER" magazine. See http://www.divermag.com/online/pages/Current-issue.html

For those of you old enough to remember, Don was the pilot of the bathyscaphe "Trieste," which set the world record for the deepest dive in history in January 1960. He probably has a Randall knife or two laying around his mountain retreat in Oregon.

If anybody is interested in receiving a scan of the article, please PM me. Otherwise, I will put the article on my web site and post a link here in August. The current scan I have is enormous, so I have to reduce it first if you want one.

If I have a chance, and if you are interested, I will write something up to post here to explain the state of preservation of objects in this particular area of the ocean, including Grissom's Astro. You do NOT see metal objects in this state of preservation in shallower depths.

Regards,

David, it sure is fun reading your posts, and believe me, I peruse each of your links.

We are lucky to have someone with your experiences who will take the time to participate in the Forum.. I'm sure your respect for the Randalls and their knives is what keeps you here.

Only someone "our" age remembers the "Trieste".

Dubie Baxter

David,
Very cool. I will look forward to reading the article, if not in the magazine,
then on your web site when you post that link!
And I DO remember the Trieste! Used to sketch pictures of it
on my school books!
Tony

Thanks guys. I prize my Randalls because I have suffered due to poor equipment in the past, and I have vowed to never do so again. My equipment has to be absolutely 100% reliable because my life often depends on it.

I don't want the mods to move the thread, so I want to keep this pertinent to Gus Grissom's Astro. Nevertheless, here are a few photos to wet your appetite. (The article is embargoed until the next issue comes out, but the photos are mine.)

The expedition members. From left to right, me, Mike McDowell (just caused a stir by planting flags on the bottom at the North Pole in 2007), Richard Garriott (currently training for a flight to the International Space Station in October), Curt Newport, Jim Sinclair (first marine archaeologist on the Titanic and long time archaeologist on the Atocha recovery), Guy Zajonc (diver to the I-52, the world deepest shipwreck) and Don Walsh:



The wreck:



Some artifacts, right after recovery and before going into conservation:



Don as a young man:



Don with a sandglass that survived the sinking, water pressure of 8,000 psi at 16,000+ fsw, 200 years underwater and recovery to the surface:



Artifacts on the bottom:

Well, Umm.....At least I didn't go down with the "Atocha".

Amazingly good pictures David.

Dubie

Paul Kagel hit the nail on the head when he said in the linked thread about how Grissom's knife was conserved:

"They probably let is sit in a saline bath for a few years before restoring it much like they do when they bring up sunken ship parts. It is quite amazing to see the difference between bringing it up and exposing it to air vs. putting in a saline bath and letting the salts out slowly. Honestly, that looks like all they did to the knife to resore it."

Based on these before and after photos of Grissom's Astro, and my experience recovering artifacts in this neighborhood, it looks like there are just iron ore and other concretions on the outside of the blade, probably from some other object nearby and the bottom muck. The knife just needed a good cleaning, elimination of salts and stabilization. The depth and the anaeorbic environment in this spot on the sea floor probably saved the knife. If the knife was on the Titanic wreck site, everything but the micarta handle would have been either gone or too fragile to conserve.