Rapidly changing Cold War submarine technology came with serious accidents and unexplained losses. Soviet boats including K-129, K-8, K-219, and Komsomolets went down alongside the American submarines Thresher and Scorpion. Their wrecks left technology and other material on the seabed that intelligence agencies and navies wanted to study. The Hughes Glomar Explorer shows how the submarine contest could continue as a recovery and intelligence problem after a boat had sunk.
Notable Point · 1:58:07-1:59:03
Cold War submarine losses turn the seabed into an intelligence target
A cluster of nuclear and missile-submarine losses made deep-ocean wrecks valuable sources of technology and intelligence.