The Titanic Wreck was Discovered While Looking for Lost Nuclear Submarines

[scott t]

The Titanic Wreck was Discovered While Looking for Lost Nuclear Submarines.

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2019/04/22/dr-robert-ballard/

[eckloss]

This story always intrigued me. I once had a written correspondence with Dr. Ballard as a child a year or so after the initial discovery of the Titanic wreck. He was kind enough to hand write letters back to mine. I'll bet even then he was chomping at the bit to tell some of his secrets. He really influenced part of my life. I even applied to MIT to study robotic engineering so I could follow in his foot steps. Brilliant man. Brilliant career.

[David F]

Very interesting. So the conclusion is always have a cover story, but preferably one that doesn't get too big!

David

[tom dougherty]

Very interesting and very, very wrong!!!! Total mash up & hash of the real history, and I am a stickler for history.

"The Titanic Wreck was Discovered While Looking for Lost Nuclear Submarines". They were not looking for lost nuclear submarines. The locations of both the Thresher (which sank near the support ship Skylark) and the Scorpion were established and mapped in the 1960's. "... the Titanic was fairly close to the two submarines." Well, Scorpion went down in the Azores returning from the Med and Thresher off the coast of New Hampshire on a test dive after overhaul. Neither of those locations would remotely be called "fairly close" to the Titanic wreck in the Grand Banks.

"Dr. Ballard designed two underwater vessels, the Argo, capable of squeezing into tight places and sending live pictures to a monitor and the Alvin, which could take several people down to the ocean floor." Alvin was designed and built in 1964, long before Ballard arrived on the scene (built by, of all companies, General Mills, best known for cereals). Argo was the name of his towed sled camera & sonar system; the small robotic design that could enter wrecks which his team built was Jason Junior (JJ). It used thrusters to maneuver and had a long cable tether.

"The true details of the mission were not released until 2017" Uh, no. The fact that he was performing a site survey of the submarines before looking for Titanic was covered in his 2000 book "Eternal Darkness".

Ballard was tasked in 1985, as the article states, in checking the two submarine wreck sites to survey for any radioactivity released from the two S5W reactors they both had for propulsion. He was to also resurvey the wreck sites by photography with the towed instrument sled Argo. He was granted time subsequent to the two submarine surveys to use the Argo in his continued quest in conjunction with the French Ifremer organization for Titanic. Argo was designed to be towed above the wrecks and could in no way squeeze into tight spaces. Argo is the size of a large refrigerator lying down. It took the initial overhead photos of the Titanic wreck site.

In 1986, he returned to the site with the DSV Alvin. Alvin had been overhauled and its depth envelope increased from 8000 ft such that it could reach Titanic. Attached to Alvin was Jason Junior (JJ), the small robotic ROV, that could fit into tight spaces and took the interior shots of Titanic. Alvin would park on the Titanic deck structure and JJ could explore to the end of the tether. Ballard later revisited Scorpion with the same combination of Alvin and a modified JJ to explore some parts of the Scorpion's interior to help clarify why she was lost.

The Navy monitors the two S5W reactors of Scorpion and Thresher, as they both contain HEU (~90% U235). The reactor cores are 6 inch thick stainless steel, so the hope is corrosion will be at a minimum over time with little release of radioactivity. The only other US nuclear reactor on the sea floor is the defueled S2G from SSN 575, Seawolf. This was the liquid metal (sodium) reactor installed on Seawolf, Rickover’s test bed on the second nuclear submarine. The core, devoid of uranium, was dumped off the coast of Maryland.

I'm not surprised that Eric heard from Ballard. I used to live one town over from him and he would attend high school sporting events his kids were in. A very nice, regular guy. I write the above as I am sure that he, as a scientist, would be appalled at the inaccuracies in the hack piece posted from “Vintage News”. Very poor fact gathering; perhaps they could change their title to the “Village Idiot”.

[eckloss]

Tom,

I'll agree with you about the site. I follow the Vintage News on a regular basis. They really do come up with some very intriguing articles. But like you said, the writing staff is second rate.

[David F]

Thank you. I think I will take your version of the story. I would like to say that this is the first time I've been taken in by fake news but who knows!

David

[scott t]

Thanks Tom for clearing up the facts.