Buddy diving just before and after the Second World War. After the invention of the "aqualung" by Cousteau and Gagnan, the first commercially underwater breathing apparatus became available for sale for sporting purposes in the late 1940s. As the new sport of scuba diving rapidly expanded through the 1950s, several sporting organisations—notably the YMCA—began programmes to train swimming enthusiasts in this new aquatic pastime, and began to codify what they believed were proper practises for this expanding sport. The YMCA considered the buddy system a useful corollary to the "never swim alone" rule of their swimming and lifesaving programmes. Cousteau himself independently
Jacques Cousteau to the Académie française, chair 17, succeeding Jean Delay. His official reception under the cupola took place on 22 June 1989, the response to his speech of reception being given by Bertrand Poirot-Delpech. After his death, he was replaced by Érik Orsenna on 28 May 1998. In June 1990, the composer Jean Michel Jarre paid homage to the commander by entitling his new album "Waiting for Cousteau". He also composed the music for Cousteau's documentary "Palawan, the last refuge". On 2 December 1990, his wife Simone Cousteau died of cancer. In June 1991, in Paris, Jacques-Yves Cousteau remarried, to Francine