| Submit your comments on this article |
| Science & Technology |
| American SSGN Enters Service |
| 2005-12-26 |
| After three years of work, the conversion of the ballistic missile submarine Ohio (SSBN 726) to a cruise missile submarine (SSGN), has been completed. The Ohio just completed it’s sea trails, and will enter service early next year. The Ohio now carries 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles, and provides space for 66 commandos (usually SEALs) and their equipment. The second of four SSBNs to be converted, the USS Florida, will be ready for service later in 2006. The other two subs to be converted will begin work in 2005 and 2006. The idea of converting ballistic missile subs, that would have to be scrapped to fulfill disarmament agreements, has been bouncing around since the 1990s. After September 11, 2001, the idea got some traction. The navy submariners love this one, because they lost a lot of their reason for being with the end of the Cold War. The United States had built a powerful nuclear submarine force during the Cold War, but with the rapid disappearance of the Soviet navy in the 1990s, there was little reason to keep over a hundred nuclear subs in commission. These boats are expensive, costing over a billion each to build and over a million dollars a week to operate. The four Ohio class SSBN being converted each have at least twenty years of life left in them. The idea of a sub, armed with 154 highly accurate cruise missiles, and capable of rapidly traveling under water (ignoring weather, or observation) at a speed of over 1,200 kilometers a day, to a far off hot spot, had great appeal in the post-Cold War world. The ability to carry a large force of commandos as well was also attractive. In one sub you have your choice of hammer or scalpel. More capable cruise missiles are in the works as well. Whether or not this multi-billion dollar investment will pay off remains to be seen. But it's certainly a bold move, and the navy already knows that Tomahawks and SEALs work. If they are going to have any extra ballistic missile subs they were planning to scrap, I've got a great "plan B" for them. Convert it into a "noisy boat" for research purposes. That is, a de-militarized international research vessel. In short, it would be for oceanography what the Hubble telescope has been for astronomy. In just a few years of operations, performing hundreds of missions per voyage, we would quadruple our knowledge of the seas. It could also pay for itself a million times over *just* by plotting high-grade mineral ore deposits. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #6 If nothing else underwater mining will give the Environuts a collective coronary :) Almost worth the price just for that. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2005-12-26 21:45 |
| #5 Leon Clavin: mining is a peculiar proposition. Surface mining today for non-ferrous metals is almost exclusively for low and very-low grade ores. The high, medium, and most of the low-grade stuff has been gone for a long time. But, if you *could* mine high and medium grade ores, your profits for a whole series of minerals would be exceptional. It is literally the difference between mining a few thousand tons of rock vs. mining several MILLION tons of rock, to get the same amount of product at the end. Platinum, for example, is highly valued for car catalytic converters. The amount of platinum molecules coughed out by car exhausts makes roadside dust have about the same concentration of platinum as is in raw, low-grade platinum ore. At about $950/oz., you mine it where you can get it, be it in the Congo or half a mile underwater. In copper mining, gold is a by-product. That is, so much ore is smelted for the copper, that significant amounts of gold is recovered, too. It exists in trace amounts in the ore. At times, when the price of copper is low and gold is high, some copper mines actually make more money off of the gold than the copper. I've no idea how manganese figures into this, but it is probably only suggested because it would be relatively easy to recover with a "scooping", rather than a real mining operation. A real undersea mining operation would first require a whole series of core drilling operations, followed by the use of tons of explosives to break up the sea floor. Then, something either like a dredging operation or a vertical conveyor belt would be used to pull the ore up to a waiting ship. Inherently expensive, they wouldn't want any ore that wasn't high or medium grade, which is why they would want a thorough mapping of the resource ahead of time, something a research submarine would be well-equipped to do. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-12-26 20:27 |
| #4 22 missile tubes are replaced by 154 vertical launch Tomahawk tubes (7 per). They also modified 2 missile tubes as airlocks for the seals. That also leaves 2 decks under the tomahawks for extra crew/seals/equipment. |
| Posted by: ed 2005-12-26 19:45 |
| #3 Manganese nodules worth jillions, right out there for the taking. Course you gotta cut the dolphins in for 25% right off the top, then there's the Orca problem... still there's money to be made, if you can find any use for an additional 500,000 tons of manganese a year. |
| Posted by: Leon Clavin 2005-12-26 18:20 |
| #2 Conversion of one of these boats must be mind-boggling. First of all, the Tridents were originally over-designed, on the concept that both their computers (and computer refrigeration systems) and missiles were going to get increasingly large--then just the opposite happened. Their missile tubes actually have adaptors in them for the smaller missiles, and they have lots of empty space inside, so much so that they have to carry an inordinate amount of lead ballast just to sink. Again, as a research ship these could put the Glomar Explorer and Challenger to shame. I'm talking literally quadrillions of dollars of mineral wealth underseas, that is just too valuable to pass up. Once it's mapped, it would be irresistable to mining companies, worth far more than undersea oil. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-12-26 18:05 |
| #1 how many tubes? same as when it had ballistic missiles? seems it frees up space |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-12-26 17:20 |