The U.S. Military Keeps Its Deep-Sea Operations A Secret

Reuters

Steve Weintz, National Interest: Why The U.S. Military Keeps Its Deep-Sea Operations A Secret

What goes on beneath the waves?

Here's What You Need To Remember: Deep-sea searches today cross the public consciousness when planes go missing, but deep-sea exploration draws less public attention than space exploration. We don't know what's happening in the dark deep, the secret waters where espionage, technology and the ocean meet.

Seemingly ripped from the pages and screens of a geopolitical thriller, one of the Cold War's most incredible adventures stretched from outer space to the ocean floor, involved bus-sized satellites and deep-diving subs, and pulled together sailors, spooks and scientists into a secret new national capability.

On June 15, 1971, eleven years after the first spy satellite began taking its photos and the first submarine reached the bottom of Earth's oceans, a U.S. Air Force Titan III missile lofted a spacecraft the size of a Greyhound bus into orbit. The first of America's third-generation spysats, the KH-9 HEXAGON carried 33 miles of film and four recovery capsules to return it all to Earth. Its cameras and film stock could count the slices of a pizza from 100 miles up.

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WNU Editor: Three quarters of the world is covered with water. I am sure a lot of stuff is happening under the waters.