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of 3,000 to 5,000 horsepower, and that the percentage of nodules that 
can be included in the stream of water and still effectively be pumped 
are significant. 
When Tenneco acquired Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock 
Company, it decided that the potential of the ocean mining program 
was adequate to form a separate corporation, to fund this corporation 
for at least 8 to 4 years, and to permit us then to concentrate on the 
development of the technology and the experimentation with at-sea 
equipment so that we could develop a mining and processing system 
to bring these metals from the sea floor to the marketplace. 
This corporation was formed late in 1968. 
We are currently located in Newport ‘News, Va., in rented quar- 
ters and ground will be broken on our permanent office building in 
Gloucester County, Va., early this fall. 
We are located adjacent to the Virginia Institute of Marine Science: 
I am fortunate to serve on the board of that organization and it is a 
fine small academic institution devoted to developing marine scientists 
and is an excellent complement to our technical staff. 
The company, and I just show you this organization chart to make 
you aware, consists of people who gave up comfortable corporate posi- 
tions in many of the country’s outstanding industrial organizations to 
become part of the team because they are convinced that this is a tech- 
nologically feasible program. 
We are heavy in the scientific and technical area and we are very 
pieased with our people who are devoted and ambitious. 
One of the important parts of our program is to find, on the deep 
ocean floor, a deposit of nodules that are high in metals, convenient 
to a processing base and in a favorable topographic situation; ii 
other words, where the sea floor is flat enough and uniform enough to 
permit us to recover the nodules with the equipment that we are cur- 
rently working with. This is the design of the gathering head and 
pumping system you saw a moment ago. 
The Prospector is a converted cargo-passenger ship, 152 feet long, 
32-foot beam and is air conditioned throughout. I would like to take 
you briefly through the ship and show you some of the equipment that 
permits us to study the sea floor. 
The navigation is by the usual techniques or by the more modern 
technique such as radar loran and depth recorders. The ship is simple 
in its design and construction but it is extremely comfortable and well 
equipped. 
Tt is currently working out of San Diego, Calif., and studying areas 
where we have information that indicates deposits of nodules on the 
sea floor. 
The first exploration task is the preparation of a chart of the sea 
floor. Rather than navigate by the stars, we soon find ourselves oriented 
to the ocean bottom. We always construct a very careful chart using 
a precision depth recorder. This is done by sailing the ship on a grid 
and actually mapping the bottom of the ocean. 
The next step is to inspect the sea floor and you see here the control 
center where the oceanographic equipment is operated. 
A winch capable of recovering packages at 900 feet a minute and 
carrying over 22,000 feet of TV cable is in the hold of the ship. 
This is the tripod which carries the TV camera system and permits 
