NAVY CAPABILITIES 17 



oceanographic surveying, and the majority of vehicles are also unable to 

 accommodate, in space, payload, or power, the instruments required to 

 conduct undersea surveys. Contracts have been established with industry 

 and private institutions to provide the following: a local navigation system, 

 a pod for sensing water characteristics (temperature, salinity, sound speed, 

 depth), apod for sensing ocean characteristics at the bottom (sound speed/ 

 attenuation, pH, temperature, density, bearing strength), and design re- 

 quirements for gravity and magnetic measurements. As in past operations, 

 all tests and evaluations will be conducted in those geographic and scien- 

 tific areas which provide information required by other projects. In this 

 manner, immediate results are obtained which offer insight into many en- 

 vironmental problems now confronting the oceanographer, as well as 

 accomplish the objectives of the DOSV project. 



Future contracts will be let to provide bottom slope-measuring equip- 

 ment and sonic mapping devices, ambient noise and ambient light sensors, 

 sediment and biological sampling devices, a sub-bottom profiling instru- 

 ment, and portable synoptic current sensors. Upon receipt of these in- 

 struments, at-sea tests and evaluations wUl be performed to determine the 

 performance required of a DOSV to employ these instruments in undersea 

 surveying. In addition to the hardware procurement, research and evalua- 

 tion will be performed to determine in what aspects of undersea surveying 

 the DOSV surpasses classical surface techniques. 



NUCLEAR POWERED RESEARCH AND OCEAN 

 ENGINEERING VEHICLE (NR-1) 



On April 18, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced that the 

 Atomic Energy Commission and the Department of the Navy had under- 

 taken the development of a nuclear-powered deep submergence research 

 and ocean engineering vehicle. The capabihty of this manned vehicle, des- 

 ignated the NR-1 , will be far greater than any other developed or planned to 

 date because of the vastly increased endurance made possible by nuclear 

 power. The experience gained by its development will provide the basis 

 for development of future nuclear-powered oceanographic research vehicles 

 of still greater versatility and depth capability. 



The NR-1 vehicle, which will be able to move at maximum speed for 

 periods of time limited only by the amount of food and supplies it carries, 

 will carry a crew of five and two scientists. The vehicle will be able to 

 perform detailed studies and mapping of the ocean bottom, temperature, 

 currents, and other oceanographic parameters for military, commercial. 



