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Shakedown Cruise. The Glomar Explorer's 170-man crew was selected and put on contract by the CIA. The 40 men on the mining staff obviously knew the ship's secret mission; the others probably did not. All refused to talk to outsiders about the ship, except to say that it had a gymnasium and the food was good. On Nov. 4, 1972, the Glomar Explorer was launched and left shortly thereafter on its shakedown cruise. According to one account, it tested its detection equipment and some of its recovery systems at the site of the 1968 accidental explosion of the U.S. nuclear-powered submarine Scorpion, which went down near the Azores in about 10,000 ft. of water.
Then Glomar Explorer, her beam too wide for the Panama Canal, sailed round the Horn and made for Los Angeles, where she rendezvoused with her companion, HMB-1. Fittingly, Glomar Explorer docked at Long Beach's Pier E, which is located only about 50 yds. from the hangar that for years has housed Hughes' gigantic plywood flying boat, known irreverently as "the Spruce Goose." Though Howard Hughes last month finally agreed to dispose of the Goose, giving parts of it to the Smithsonian, it remains at present in the hangar, a monument to his single-minded determination.
Delicate Operation. Sightseers were barred from approaching either the ship or the barge. When local fire officials insisted upon inspecting HMB-1, they found its interior completely shrouded by tarpaulins. "Surveillance TV cameras follow anyone who approaches the barge, and guards with big pistols walk beside you on board," reported a tug pilot who once towed the barge.
Towing the ungainly barge in her wake, the Glomar Explorer headed for the open sea on June 20, 1974, ready at last to attempt the culmination of Project Jennifer. By about mid-July the odd convoy reached the site of the sunken Soviet sub. The delicate salvage operation got under way. Despite the chop of waves and force of the current, it was necessary for the Glomar Explorer to maintain an almost impossible stationary position, straying no more than 50 ft. in any direction. To do that, the ship dropped a series of bottom-placed transducers, which detected the force and direction of the water's flow and transmitted that information to a shipboard computer. The computer, in turn, kept the ship in one place by activating a series of water jets and small propellers placed at intervals along the ship's hull. Next the barge opened its sea cocks until it had taken on enough water to sink to a depth of 150 ft. It was maneuvered directly beneath the Glomar Explorer's moon pool and held in place by stanchions from the mother ship. Pipe from the ship reached down to the barge and attached itself to the giant grappling claws, which resembled a series of four or six interconnected ice tongs hanging from a long platform. Then the ship's crew began to feed length after length of pipe through the hole. By the time the claw reached the Soviet submarine 16,000 ft. below, the pipe alone weighed more than 400,000 Ibs. Television cameras equipped with strobe lights enabled the claw operators to see what they were doing (see diagram page 25).
One by one, the giant grapnels, which were attached by cables to the Glomar Explorer, seized sections of the stricken submarine in their steel jaws. Slowly the winches aboard the Glomar