USNS Glomar Explorer (T-AG-193)
Encyclopedia
GSF Explorer, formerly USNS Glomar Explorer (T-AG-193), is a deep-sea drillship
platform initially built for the United States
Central Intelligence Agency
Special Activities Division
secret operation Project Azorian to recover the sunken Soviet
submarine
, K-129, lost in April 1968.
The cultural impact of Glomar Explorer is indicated by its reference in a number of books: The Ghost from the Grand Banks
, a 1990 science fiction
novel
by Arthur C. Clarke
; Shock Wave by Clive Cussler
; and Charles Stross
's novel, The Jennifer Morgue
.
for use by his company, Global Marine Development Inc. She set sail on 20 June 1974. Hughes told the media that the ship's purpose was to extract manganese nodule
s from the ocean floor
. This marine geology
cover story became surprisingly influential, spurring many others to examine the idea. But in sworn testimony in United States district court
proceedings and in appearances before government agencies, Global Marine executives and others associated with Hughes Glomar Explorer project unanimously maintained that the ship could not be used in any economically viable ocean mineral operation.
contacted Hughes, who agreed to assist.
While the ship did recover a portion of K-129, a mechanical failure in the grapple caused two-thirds of the recovered section to break off during recovery. This lost section is said to have held many of the most sought items, including the code book and nuclear missiles. It was subsequently reported two nuclear-tipped torpedoes and some cryptographic machines were recovered, along with the bodies of six Soviet submariners, who were given a formal, filmed burial at sea
.
The operation became public in February 1975 when the Los Angeles Times
published a story about "Project Jennifer", followed by news stories with additional details in other publications, including The New York Times
. However, the true name of the project was not publicly known to be Project Azorian until 2010.
Red Star Rogue (2005) by Kenneth Sewell makes the claim "Project Jennifer" recovered virtually all of K-129 from the ocean floor. Sewell states, "[D]espite an elaborate cover-up and the eventual claim that Project Jennifer had been a failure, most of K-129 and the remains of the crew were, in fact, raised from the bottom of the Pacific and brought into the Glomar Explorer".
(GSA) published advertisements inviting businesses to submit proposals for leasing the ship. By the end of four months, GSA had received a total of seven bids, including a US$2 million offer submitted by a Lincoln, Nebraska
college student, and a US$1.98 million offer from a man who said he planned to seek a government contract to salvage the nuclear reactors of two United States submarines. The Lockheed Missile and Space Company submitted a US$3 million, two-year lease proposal contingent upon the company's ability to secure financing. GSA had already extended the bid deadline twice to allow Lockheed to find financial backers for its project without success and the agency concluded there was no reason to believe this would change in the near future.
Although the scientific community rallied to the defense of Hughes Glomar Explorer, urging the president to maintain the ship as a national asset, no agency or department of the government wanted to assume the maintenance and operating cost. Subsequently, in September 1976, the GSA turned Hughes Glomar Explorer over to the Navy for mothballing
, and in January 1977, after she was prepared for dry docking at a cost of more than two million dollars, the ship became part of the Navy's Suisun Bay
Reserve Fleet
.
announced it had leased Hughes Glomar Explorer and that in November would begin testing a prototype deepsea mining system in the Pacific Ocean. The consortium included subsidiaries of the Standard Oil
Company of Indiana, Royal Dutch Shell
, and Boskalis Westminster Group NV
of the Netherlands. Another partner, and the prime contractor, was the Lockheed Missiles and Space Company
.
In 1997, the ship was taken to Cascade General for modifications that converted her to a dynamically-positioned
deep sea drilling ship, capable of drilling in waters of 7500 feet (2,286 m) and, with some modification, up to 11500 feet (3,505.2 m), which is 2000 feet (609.6 m) deeper than any other existing rig. The conversion cost over $180 million and was completed during the first quarter of 1998.
The conversion of the vessel in 1997 was the start of a 30-year lease from the U.S. Navy to Global Marine Drilling. Global Marine merged with Santa Fe International Corporation in 2001 to become GlobalSantaFe Corporation
, which merged with Transocean Inc. in November 2007 and operates the vessel as GSF Explorer.
In 2010, Transocean acquired the vessel in return for cash payment.
GSF Explorer is currently on hire to a consortium led by Marathon Oil
, to drill offshore Indonesia until March 2012.
Drillship
A drillship is a maritime vessel that has been fitted with drilling apparatus. It is most often used for exploratory offshore drilling of new oil or gas wells in deep water or for scientific drilling. The drillship can also be used as a platform to carry out well maintenance or completion work such...
platform initially built for the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
Special Activities Division
Special Activities Division
The Special Activities Division is a division in the United States Central Intelligence Agency's National Clandestine Service responsible for covert operations known as "special activities"...
secret operation Project Azorian to recover the sunken Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
submarine
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
, K-129, lost in April 1968.
The cultural impact of Glomar Explorer is indicated by its reference in a number of books: The Ghost from the Grand Banks
The Ghost from the Grand Banks
The Ghost from the Grand Banks is a 1990 science fiction novel written by Arthur C. Clarke .The story deals with two groups, both of whom are attempting to raise one of the halves of the wreck of the Titanic from the floor of the Atlantic Ocean in time for the sinking's centennial in 2012.The...
, a 1990 science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by Arthur C. Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them 2001: A Space Odyssey, and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years, Robert A. Heinlein,...
; Shock Wave by Clive Cussler
Clive Cussler
Clive Eric Cussler is an American adventure novelist and marine archaeologist. His thriller novels, many featuring the character Dirk Pitt, have reached The New York Times fiction best-seller list more than seventeen times...
; and Charles Stross
Charles Stross
Charles David George "Charlie" Stross is a British writer of science fiction, Lovecraftian horror and fantasy. He was born in Leeds.Stross specialises in hard science fiction and space opera...
's novel, The Jennifer Morgue
The Jennifer Morgue
The Jennifer Morgue is the second collection of stories by Charles Stross featuring Bob Howard, containing the title novel The Jennifer Morgue, the short story "Pimpf", and an essay titled "The Golden Age of Spying"...
.
Construction
Hughes Glomar Explorer (HGE), as the ship was called at the time, was built between 1973 and 1974, by Sun Shipbuilding and Drydock Co. for more than at the direction of Howard HughesHoward Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was an American business magnate, investor, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world...
for use by his company, Global Marine Development Inc. She set sail on 20 June 1974. Hughes told the media that the ship's purpose was to extract manganese nodule
Manganese nodule
Polymetallic nodules, also called manganese nodules, are rock concretions on the sea bottom formed of concentric layers of iron and manganese hydroxides around a core. The core may be microscopically small and is sometimes completely transformed into manganese minerals by crystallization...
s from the ocean floor
Seabed
The seabed is the bottom of the ocean.- Ocean structure :Most of the oceans have a common structure, created by common physical phenomena, mainly from tectonic movement, and sediment from various sources...
. This marine geology
Marine geology
Marine geology or geological oceanography involves geophysical, geochemical, sedimentological and paleontological investigations of the ocean floor and coastal margins...
cover story became surprisingly influential, spurring many others to examine the idea. But in sworn testimony in United States district court
United States district court
The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. Both civil and criminal cases are filed in the district court, which is a court of law, equity, and admiralty. There is a United States bankruptcy court associated with each United States...
proceedings and in appearances before government agencies, Global Marine executives and others associated with Hughes Glomar Explorer project unanimously maintained that the ship could not be used in any economically viable ocean mineral operation.
Project Azorian
Because K-129 sank in very deep water, a large ship was required for the recovery operation. Such a vessel would easily be spotted by Soviet vessels, which might then interfere with the operation, so an elaborate cover story was developed. The CIACentral Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
contacted Hughes, who agreed to assist.
While the ship did recover a portion of K-129, a mechanical failure in the grapple caused two-thirds of the recovered section to break off during recovery. This lost section is said to have held many of the most sought items, including the code book and nuclear missiles. It was subsequently reported two nuclear-tipped torpedoes and some cryptographic machines were recovered, along with the bodies of six Soviet submariners, who were given a formal, filmed burial at sea
Burial at sea
Burial at sea describes the procedure of disposing of human remains in the ocean, normally from a ship or boat. It is regularly performed by navies, but also can be done by private citizens in many countries.-By religion:...
.
The operation became public in February 1975 when the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
published a story about "Project Jennifer", followed by news stories with additional details in other publications, including The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
. However, the true name of the project was not publicly known to be Project Azorian until 2010.
Red Star Rogue (2005) by Kenneth Sewell makes the claim "Project Jennifer" recovered virtually all of K-129 from the ocean floor. Sewell states, "[D]espite an elaborate cover-up and the eventual claim that Project Jennifer had been a failure, most of K-129 and the remains of the crew were, in fact, raised from the bottom of the Pacific and brought into the Glomar Explorer".
Mothballing
While the ship had an enormous lifting capacity, there was little interest in operating the vessel because of her high cost. From March to June 1976, the General Services AdministrationGeneral Services Administration
The General Services Administration is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies. The GSA supplies products and communications for U.S...
(GSA) published advertisements inviting businesses to submit proposals for leasing the ship. By the end of four months, GSA had received a total of seven bids, including a US$2 million offer submitted by a Lincoln, Nebraska
Lincoln, Nebraska
The City of Lincoln is the capital and the second-most populous city of the US state of Nebraska. Lincoln is also the county seat of Lancaster County and the home of the University of Nebraska. Lincoln's 2010 Census population was 258,379....
college student, and a US$1.98 million offer from a man who said he planned to seek a government contract to salvage the nuclear reactors of two United States submarines. The Lockheed Missile and Space Company submitted a US$3 million, two-year lease proposal contingent upon the company's ability to secure financing. GSA had already extended the bid deadline twice to allow Lockheed to find financial backers for its project without success and the agency concluded there was no reason to believe this would change in the near future.
Although the scientific community rallied to the defense of Hughes Glomar Explorer, urging the president to maintain the ship as a national asset, no agency or department of the government wanted to assume the maintenance and operating cost. Subsequently, in September 1976, the GSA turned Hughes Glomar Explorer over to the Navy for mothballing
Reserve fleet
A reserve fleet is a collection of naval vessels of all types that are fully equipped for service but are not currently needed, and thus partially or fully decommissioned. A reserve fleet is informally said to be "in mothballs" or "mothballed"; an equivalent expression in unofficial modern U.S....
, and in January 1977, after she was prepared for dry docking at a cost of more than two million dollars, the ship became part of the Navy's Suisun Bay
Suisun Bay
Suisun Bay is a shallow tidal estuary at in northern California, USA. It lies at the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, forming the entrance to the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, an inverted river delta...
Reserve Fleet
National Defense Reserve Fleet
The National Defense Reserve Fleet consists of "mothballed" ships, mostly merchant vessels, that can be activated within 20 to 120 days to provide shipping for the United States of America during national emergencies, either military or non-military, such as commercial shipping crises.The NDRF is...
.
Lease and sale
In September 1978, Ocean Minerals Company consortium of Mountain View, CaliforniaMountain View, California
-Downtown:Mountain View has a pedestrian-friendly downtown centered on Castro Street. The downtown area consists of the seven blocks of Castro Street from the Downtown Mountain View Station transit center in the north to the intersection with El Camino Real in the south...
announced it had leased Hughes Glomar Explorer and that in November would begin testing a prototype deepsea mining system in the Pacific Ocean. The consortium included subsidiaries of the Standard Oil
Standard Oil
Standard Oil was a predominant American integrated oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 as a corporation in Ohio, it was the largest oil refiner in the world and operated as a major company trust and was one of the world's first and largest multinational...
Company of Indiana, Royal Dutch Shell
Royal Dutch Shell
Royal Dutch Shell plc , commonly known as Shell, is a global oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the fifth-largest company in the world according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine and one of the six...
, and Boskalis Westminster Group NV
Royal Boskalis Westminster
Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V. is a Netherlands-based company that provides services relating to the construction and maintenance of maritime infrastructure on an international basis...
of the Netherlands. Another partner, and the prime contractor, was the Lockheed Missiles and Space Company
Lockheed Missiles and Space Company
Lockheed Missiles and Space Company was a unit of the Lockheed Corporation "Missiles, Space, and Electronics Systems Group." LMSC was started by Willis Hawkins who served as its president...
.
In 1997, the ship was taken to Cascade General for modifications that converted her to a dynamically-positioned
Dynamic positioning
Dynamic positioning is a computer controlled system to automatically maintain a vessel's position and heading by using its own propellers and thrusters...
deep sea drilling ship, capable of drilling in waters of 7500 feet (2,286 m) and, with some modification, up to 11500 feet (3,505.2 m), which is 2000 feet (609.6 m) deeper than any other existing rig. The conversion cost over $180 million and was completed during the first quarter of 1998.
The conversion of the vessel in 1997 was the start of a 30-year lease from the U.S. Navy to Global Marine Drilling. Global Marine merged with Santa Fe International Corporation in 2001 to become GlobalSantaFe Corporation
GlobalSantaFe Corporation
GlobalSantaFe Corporation, which traded on the NYSE as GSF was an offshore oil and gas drilling contractor, which owned or operating a fleet of 59 marine drilling rigs...
, which merged with Transocean Inc. in November 2007 and operates the vessel as GSF Explorer.
In 2010, Transocean acquired the vessel in return for cash payment.
GSF Explorer is currently on hire to a consortium led by Marathon Oil
Marathon Oil
Marathon Oil Corporation is a United States-based oil and natural gas exploration and production company. Principal exploration activities are in the United States, Norway, Equatorial Guinea, Angola and Canada. Principal development activities are in the United States, the United Kingdom, Norway,...
, to drill offshore Indonesia until March 2012.
See also
- Not to be confused with the Glomar ChallengerGlomar ChallengerThe 120m long Glomar Challenger was a deep sea research and scientific drilling vessel for oceanography and marine geology studies. It was designed by Global Marine Inc...
, "the first research vessel specifically designed in the late 1960s for the purpose of drilling into and taking core samples from the deep ocean floor." - Hughes Mining BargeHughes Mining BargeThe Hughes Mining Barge, or HMB-1, is a submersible barge about 99 m long, 32 m wide, and more than 27 m tall...
- Special Activities DivisionSpecial Activities DivisionThe Special Activities Division is a division in the United States Central Intelligence Agency's National Clandestine Service responsible for covert operations known as "special activities"...
External links
- AZORIAN The Raising of the K-129 / 2009 - 2 Part TV Documentary / Michael White Films Vienna
- Transocean, Inc.
- New life as a Global Drilling
- Images of the ship
- Images of HMB-1, the Hughes mining barge which held the recovery claw
- Project overview
- Overview of Project Jennifer
- Virtual tour inside HMB-1 and Sea Shadow, 2011, includes HMB-1 operating manual.
- Glomar Explorer Technical Description