Alvin
is a little three-man submarine commissioned for ocean exploration and
launched in June of 1964. It is the only submarine shared by NOAA and
the Navy -and it’s still going strong fifty years later!
The
little sub has, as of the end of last year, taken 4,678 dives. It has
spent 32,611 hours—more than 1,300 days—under the ocean's surface, with
an average dive length of nearly seven hours. It has carried 14,025
humans, usually one pilot and two scientists per dive, to comb the ocean
floor. It recovered a hydrogen bomb that was lost in the Mediterranean
after a mid-air plane collision. It helped to discover previously
unknown life forms congregating around hydrothermal vents off the
Galapagos Islands. Most recently it helped to document the sub-surface
effects of the Deep Water Horizon oil spill. Most famously it explored
the wreckage of the Titanic.
Read more about the adventures of
the little submarine that just keeps going at the Atlantic.
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