Aeronaut, environmentalist and psychiatrist Bertrand Piccard believes the COVID-19 crisis could be a chance to reset our priorities, leading to a more efficient, cleaner and fairer world. Interview by Alyson Meister
Bertrand Piccard comes from one of the world’s foremost dynasties of adventurers: his grandfather Auguste invented the pressurized capsule to become the first man to reach the stratosphere and inspired the character of Professor Calculus in Tintin. His great uncle, Jean Felix, who built the first American stratospheric balloon was the inspiration for the Star Trek character Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the fictional starship Enterprise.
His father accomplished the deepest dive ever, reaching the bottom of the Marianna Trench, 11 kilometers below the surface. As a teen, Bertrand dreamed of one day boldly going where no one had gone before. Yet his ambitions were, for a time, grounded by a fear of heights that belied his ancestry. “I faced a big…