PURPOSE 



The purpose of SEACON is to : 



(a) Provide visible benchmarks for the achievement of discrete tech- 

 nological milestones, where such achievements will ultimately lead 

 to a demonstrated capability for seafloor construction. 



(b) Force technological advancement of the various components of 

 ocean engineering that will tie together current achievements and 

 capabilities into operating systems. 



(c) Identify deficiencies in existing technology and enable the effi- 

 cient selection of research and development tasks to achieve 

 desired technological levels. 



BACKGROUND 



SEACON is in agreement with the Technical Development Plan for Deep 

 Ocean Technological Project (DOT)-^ and provides for the development and 

 demonstration of several of the technologies required for implementation 

 of" the Navy's plans. Those plans are expressed in the Flan for Definition 

 of the (NAVFAC/NCF) Role in Ocean Engineering, ^ the Navy Deep Submerg- 

 ence/Ocean Engineering Program (Proposed) 1970-198o5 and the Navy's role 

 in the Exploitation of the Ocean (Proj. BLUE WATER ).^ 



The Deep Ocean Technology Project will be in its third year in FY-70 , 

 Some construction equipment and techniques will have advanced to the 

 stage where they will be ready for, and in need of, field (i.e., ocean) 

 testing and evaluation. Many of these experiments would have been per- 

 formed independently in the due course of hardware development, but SEACON 

 brings all the individual experiments together into one large experiment 

 and integrates them. 



In addition to the programs noted above, SEACON will make use of equip- 

 ment and capabilities developed at NCEL and other Navy laboratories and 

 activities in R&D program which are not under DOT Project sponsorship. 

 For example, NCEL is conducting studies on bottom stabilization, embedment 

 anchors, and materials which will be evaluated as a part of SEACON. 



There are a number of other seafloor projects related to SEACON. They 

 include Atlantis,^ Project SEA USE,^ and TEKTITE . ^ The Atlantis program, which 

 proposes a test and evaluation facility on the continental shelf off the 

 east coast of Florida, will attempt to satisfy a wide range of mission 

 requirements. Project SEA USE proposes a test installation at shallow 

 depth on the Cobb Seamount in the Pacific Northwest. The installation will 

 be used for exploration of the seamount and the ocean. TEKTITE was a 

 shallow-water (50 feet) installation for hiological, biomedical, and 

 geological studies. 



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