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*The answer to the questions are Mr. Barker's exact words"
1. What was the navy's interest in buying the Trieste?
"Exploration. They were like 'We buy this thing, and we test it out and see if there is anything down in the deep sea that can serve us any good.' Well the main idea was when they got it 'can they search the bottoms of the ocean?'"
2. Did the Trieste change after Challenger Deep? Why and How?
"The original Trieste was used a number of times. What they did was they built the Trieste 2, which was the new version of it. They also built the Alvin too, the Trieste II was the predecessor of the Alvin and the power to be able to pick things up."
3. Why was Jacques Piccard part of the crew?
"That is because the Navy couldn't get enough people, and they needed atleast two people, and so he was recruited."
4. Who helped set up the Trieste for the dive?
"It was a navy crew that set it up. They set it up in Guam, put it together there. It was a small team. Then, they took it out to Challenger Deep, unhooked it, and let it sink. The people in the ship stayed up, while the two people went down to the Trench. They then came back up, hooked the Trieste to the ship, and went back to the US."
5. Who was at the conference when the US Navy bought the Trieste?
"The Resource Division and Auguste Piccard went there, however, the rest is not in out records."
6. Who were the sponsors for the dive? Did anyone help fund it other than a few National governments?
"Just the US navy. No one else put money into it. The dive that people put money into was James Cameron's dive with the Deepsea Challenger in 2012, where he had a lot of sponsors."