Cousteau became a capitaine de corvette in the French navy in 1948 and president of the French Oceanographic Campaigns and commander of the ship Calypso in 1950. He became director of the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco in 1957.

Cousteau was the founder of the Underseas Research Group at Toulon and of the French Office of Underseas Research at Marseille, Fr. (renamed the Centre of Advanced Marine Studies in 1968). The inventor of the Aqua-Lung diving apparatus and a process for using television underwater, he became head in 1957 of the Conshelf Saturation Dive Program, conducting experiments in which men live and work for extended periods of time at considerable depths along the continental shelves. His many books include Par 18 mètres de fond (1946; “Through 18 Metres of Water”), The Silent World (1953), The Living Sea (1963), Three Adventures: Galápagos, Titicaca, the Blue Holes (1973), Dolphins (1975), and Jacques Cousteau: The Ocean World (1985). He also wrote and produced films concerning the oceans, which attracted immense audiences both in motion-picture theatres and on television.