A NEW INITIATIVE 111 



ships and its bathyscaph TRIESTE. This casualty focused national atten- 

 tion on Navy capabilities underwater, and while it showed that much had 

 been accomplished it was determined that more should be done. 



The second event was the loss of an unarmed nuclear weapon off the 

 Mediterranean Coast in 1966. This event accentuated the tremendous dif- 

 ficulty of exploring and searching the ocean depths, even though the latest 

 sensors were being employed and services of the then operational United 

 States deep diving vehicles were being utilized. These craft included 

 ALVIN, which located the weapon on the sea floor, Reynolds ALUMI- 

 NAUT, which located significant pieces of aircraft debris in its underwater 

 search, and the shallow diving Perry CUBMARINE, which located numer- 

 ous pieces of debris from the aircraft. The weapon was recovered by the 

 unmanned vehicle CURV. CURV is a product of ocean engineering work 

 at the Navy Undersea Warfare Center, Pasadena, California. 



In 1966 the Office of the Oceanographer of the Navy was established 

 to provide a better focus for Navy oceanographic programs and to better 

 mobihze our resources within the Navy to face the many challenges ahead. 

 The Deep Submergence Systems Project (DSSP) was established as a sepa- 

 rate Project within the Naval Material Command. The DSSP was launched 

 in 1964 to develop and deliver to the fleet new underwater capabilities: a 

 new rescue system, a large object salvage system, diver tools, the tech- 

 niques of saturated diving for extended operations on the continental 

 shelf, and new submersible vehicles capable of searching the ocean 

 floors. 



In development is a rescue vehicle capable of transferring personnel be- 

 tween two fully submerged submarines, the Deep Submergence Rescue 

 Vehicle (DSRV). This vehicle will be delivered to the fleet in 1968-1969. 

 The DSRV will be air transportable and submarine transportable and will 

 be deliverable anywhere in the world. 



A large object salvage system will substantially increase recovery capa- 

 bilities from the continental shelf. Employing saturated diving and other 

 advanced diving techniques and hardware developed during the Sealab 

 experiments, these systems represent a radical improvement in the Navy's 

 continental shelf and deep ocean recovery capability. 



The Navy is developing plans for a Deep Submergence Search Vehicle 

 (DSSV) whose mission is ultimately to conduct sea floor search to a depth 

 of 20,000 ft, providing coverage of 98 percent of the worlds oceans. 



The NR-1, a small nuclear-powered research and ocean engineering 

 vehicle, is being developed jointly by the Navy and the AEC. The long 



