USS Seadragon and Skate sit nose to nose on top of the world after under-ice voyages from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to the North Pole.
A frogman from the Seadragon swims under the Arctic ice in one of the first photographs made beneath the North Pole.
DEEP SUBMERGENCE RESEARCH VEHICLE On April 18, 1965, President Johnson announced that the Atomic Energy Commission and Department of the Navy were undertaking development of a nuclear-powered deep submergence research and engineering vehicle. This manned vehicle, designated the NR-1, will have vastly greater endurance than any other yet developed or planned, because of its nuclear power. Its development will provide the basis for future nuclear-powered oceanographic research vehicles of even greater versatility and depth capability.
The NR-1 will be able to move at maximum speed for periods of time limited only by the amount of food and supplies it carries. With a crew of five and two scientists, the vehicle will be able to make detailed studies of the ocean bottom, temperature, currents, and other phenomena for military, commercial, and scientific uses. The nuclear propulsion plant will give it great independence from surface support ships and essentially unlimited endurance for exploration.
The submarine will have viewing ports for visual observation of its surroundings and of the ocean bottom. A remote grapple will permit collection of marine samples and other objects. The NR-1 is expected to be capable of exploring areas of the Continental Shelf, which appears to contain the most accessible wealth in mineral and food resources in the seas. Exploratory charting of this kind may help the United States in establishing sovereignty over parts of the Continental Shelf; a ship with its depth capability can explore an ocean-bottom area several times larger than the United States.
The reactor plant for the vehicle is being designed by the General Electric Company’s Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, Schenectady, New York. The remainder of the propulsion plant is being designed by the Electric Boat Division, General Dynamics Corporation, Groton, Connecticut.
Scientists are already beginning to implant small sea floor laboratories. In the future, when large permanent undersea installations for scientific investigation, mining, or fish farming become a reality, nuclear reactors like the one designed for research submersibles or the one already in use in Antarctica and other remote locations[15] will serve as their power plants.
ISOTOPIC POWER SOURCES