In March of 1972, Dr. R. John Rutten was practicing family medicine in Santa Barbara, California, when he was contacted by the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Before taking up a public sector career, Dr. Rutten had obtained specialized training and experience in diving medicine while operating decompression chambers for the US Navy. It was that expertise that won him the attention of the CIA. The plan was to secretly raise the Soviet K-129 nuclear-armed submarine that had sunk in 1968. The Hughes Glomar Explorer, the tremendous deep-sea drilling platform that would carry the crew on their journey, was still under construction at the time. Two years after being recruited, in August of 1974, Dr. Rutten and forty-five companions flew a private charter to Hawaii where they boarded the completed Explorer. He was assigned to B-Crew, charged with exploring and recovering the submarine after its miraculous discovery at a depth of 17,000 feet two months earlier. In this firsthand, historical account, Dr. Rutten recounts his seven weeks with the B-Crew aboard the Hughes Glomar Explorer as they attempt to elude the ever-watchful Soviet trawlers to exhume a priceless relic of Soviet engineering.

DOMP

DEEP OCEAN MINING PROJECTBy R. JOHN RUTTEN

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 R. John Rutten, MD
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4759-1289-0

Contents

Foreword....................................................................ixIntroduction................................................................xvChapter I The Cover Story..................................................1Chapter II Harvey and the Construction of the HGE..........................9Chapter III The Layout of the Ship and Crews...............................14Chapter IV Indoctrination..................................................21Chapter V Soviet Company and the Capture of the TO.........................26Chapter VI Our B Crew's Departure..........................................33Chapter VII A Safe House on Maui...........................................42Chapter VIII Sick Bay Aboard Ship..........................................52Chapter IX Exploitation of the TO..........................................60Chapter X Back to Maui for Supplies........................................70Chapter XI Heading Out for Disposal of the TO..............................78Chapter XII Burial at Sea Ceremony.........................................84Chapter XIII Getting Ready to Head Home....................................93Chapter XIV The Long Journey Home..........................................105Chapter XV R&R and Then Back to the Ship...................................112Chapter XVI Gearing Up for Another Mission.................................117Chapter XVII Stretching Out the Legs in Rough Seas.........................124Chapter XVIII Trouble with the Mating Exercise.............................138Chapter XIX Returning to Port..............................................146Chapter XX One Door Closes and Another Opens...............................152Chapter XXI One Last Voyage................................................168Chapter XXII Debrief and Walking through the Open Door.....................183Afterword...................................................................193Glossary of Terms...........................................................195Bibliography................................................................197

Chapter One

THE COVER STORY

"SECRET PLAN: HUGHES TO MINE OCEAN FLOOR" said the inch-and-a-half-high headline on the front page of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner for Monday, November 20, 1972. There was also a front-page photograph of the huge barge, the Hughes Marine Barge (HMB-1) that would hold the mining machine designed to mine mineral nodules from the floor of the oceans around the world. The story told of the secret technology that would allow the Hughes Glomar Explorer (HGE), the 618-foot-long ship built through Global Marine by the wealthy and eccentric Howard Hughes, to mate with the huge mining machine contained in the HMB-1.

The mineral nodules were said to contain manganese, copper, nickel, cobalt, and other valuable minerals. They are produced by the volcanic hot vents on the ocean floor and seem to be present in huge amounts in selected areas of the deep ocean. It was estimated by mineralogists that there are 1.6 trillion metric tons of these red potato-shaped spheres in the Pacific Ocean alone. The volcanic vents are forming a half a million more metric tons each year. The nodules form like hailstones, in that there is generally a crystallized core found at the center of the friable metallic crust. Often this nitus is a fossilized shark's tooth.

The newspaper stated that the HMB-1 compound in Redwood City on the San Francisco Bay was shrouded in secrecy. Intrigue and mystery concerning the project were rampant. It was said that city inspectors must call ahead for permission to enter the compound where the construction project was occurring. Federal government officials had queried Hughes Tool Company about the project but had received no answers to the questions about the project.

The concept of a deep ocean mining program was highly competitive at that time. In addition to Hughes Summa Corporation, there were several other privately financed United States ventures with the same idea. At that time, Kennecott Copper Corporation, International Nickel of Canada, and governmentally financed corporations in Japan, Germany, and France were also going forward with nodule mining programs. How far back does the development of this then-current industrial technology go?

Global Marine seemed to have the longest history of building ships with successful position holding capabilities in the open ocean, with the Cuss I and the Glomar Challenger being used by the oil industry for drilling wells under the sea. There was even a program proposed in the 1960s for drilling into the Mohorovicic discontinuity, the junction between the earth's crust and the mantle layer, for scientific purposes. Remote-controlled robot devices had been designed and constructed to explore the bottom of the ocean at great depths.

The United States Naval Ship Mizar towed a Naval Research Laboratories detector in successfully finding underwater metallic objects. In 1968, Mizar found the navy's submarine, USS Scorpion, in the Atlantic Ocean. In 1969, she found Israel's The Dakar in the Mediterranean. She'd also found the USS Thresher in 1964 and the French Navy's Minerve in the Mediterranean as early as 1952.

Transducers and transponders were also developed to assist in object identification and produce echo sounds from remote positions that could be used via computer to facilitate "station keeping" by surface ships. Vessels at sea have utilized code transducers to facilitate positive identification of friend or foe vessels for years. Another technological breakthrough was Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) that consisted of bottom-mounted hydrophone arrays connected by underwater cables to facilities on shore. The individual arrays were installed primarily on continental slopes and sea mounts at locations optimized for undistorted long-range acoustic propagation.

The HGE had such capabilities for the deep ocean mining project. Another US company had engineered a dynamic positioning system that could hold the 36,000-ton ship in a 150-square-foot surface in 17,000 feet of water, 12-foot seas, and 40-knot winds. The capabilities of this ship and its mining machine were carefully guarded secrets of Summa Corporation, a subsidiary of Hughes Tool Company.

I first became aware of the Deep Ocean Mining Project (DOMP) through Delco/General Motors Sea Operations (DGMSO) Director Dave Parker, MD, in early 1972. He had received communication from Don Flickenger, MD, a consultant for Summa Corporation, requesting permission to visit the plant for the purpose of determining if General Motors could supply the facilities and medical consultant for the DOMP project. Dr. Flickenger was encouraged by Dave Parker, MD, to visit the plant and the clinic where I worked. Dr. Parker was convinced that, since we'd been doing considerable work with the US Navy in its several Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) programs since 1962, we could accommodate Dr. Flickenger's needs.

Dr. Flickenger came to the plant and the clinic on March 6, 1972, and was impressed by our capabilities. Dr. Parker, Leo Bancroft, Director of Sea Operations, and I were impressed by the enormous scope of the DOMP as presented by Dr. Flickenger. Costs were discussed, and Dr. Flickenger offered a compensation program for consideration by Dr. Parker...