4/17/2023 0 Comments Down in bermuda secret base island![]() ![]() Initially, the project boasted an estimated ten percent chance of success. Instead, they settled on an idea reminiscent of the classic arcade game-a giant claw that would grasp and pull the K-129 into the “moon pool” belly of a giant ship. One suggestion involved generating enough gas on the ocean floor to buoy the submarine to the surface. brainstormed several improbable-sounding means of recovering the submarine. As a result, the Americans were hungry to gain a competitive advantage-an edge the K-129 might provide. And by 1967, the Soviet Union had amassed an armament of nuclear weapons large enough that the two nations had “virtual nuclear parity,” Houghton explains. knew how the K-129’s sonar systems operated, or the mechanisms by which the submarines kept quiet, they could improve their ability to detect them. According to Houghton, the value of the K-129 stemmed not just from the code books and nuclear warheads onboard, but also the chance to understand the manufacturing process behind the rival power’s submarines. Internally, the intelligence community deliberated about the cost-to-reward ratio of such an expensive and risky undertaking even as the submarine offered a tantalizing trove of information. In the bottom-center of the ship, you can see the plans for the "moon pool," which the claw would be able to pull the submarine into. history of the project, “No country in the world had succeeded in raising an object of this size and weight from such a depth.”ĭetails from the Glomar Explorer's ship building plan (reproduction), 1971. After two months, the Soviet Union abandoned its search for K-129 and the nuclear weapons it carried, but the United States, which had recently used Air Force technology to locate two of its own sunken submarines, pinpointed the K-129 1,500 miles northwest of Hawaii and 16,500 feet below the surface. Some reports indicate that the sinking was due to a mechanical error such as inadvertent missile engine ignition, while the Soviets for a time suspected the Americans of foul play. In this post-Cuban Missile Crisis era, both American and Soviet submarines prowled the open seas with nuclear weapons aboard, prepared for potential war. The six-year mission began in 1968, when the Soviet ballistic missile submarine K-129 went missing without explanation somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. “I can’t imagine there’s another country in the world that would have thought, ‘We found a Soviet submarine, under of water. commissioning the construction of a 600-foot ship to retrieve a sunken Soviet submarine from the ocean floor-all in complete secrecy. This mission, codenamed Project Azorian, involved the C.I.A. Together, they represent relics of a Cold War espionage mission so audacious, the museum’s curator, Vince Houghton, compares it to the heist from Ocean’s 11. In a corner exhibit of the recently reopened International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., a submarine control panel, a swoopy-banged wig, detailed whiteprints and a chunk of manganese are on display.
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