12 A
MONDAY. AUGUST 12. KM
MEDFOHD MAIL TRIBUNE. MEDFORD. OREGON
Ocean Floor Map Needed
t 5
I
5
y.s..
By A. ROBERT SMITH
Mail Tribune Washington
Correspondent
: Editor's note Tha Unit
ad Statai and Russia are
engaged in an intenst ri
valry gel to the bottom
of the world' oceans and
find a treasure chest oi
oceanographic knowledge
which will have a host of
p r a c 1 1 a a 1 applications.
Overshadowed by the more
dramatised race to the
moon, the duel beneath the
seal is no less significant,
either in terms of cold war
strategy or the resources it
holds for man in a peace
ful world. This is the first
In a aeries of five articles
by our Washington corres
pondent on this subject.
Washington W hen the
, atomic submarine Thresher
perished this spring in the
North Atlantic, some Navy
officials speculated that it
' might have crashed into an
unknown underwater sea
mount, lust as aircraft occa
tonally collide with moun
tains. '
The theory was later
dropped but. It betrays the
Navy's anxiety about one of
the little known perils facing
the latest, most advanced war
Vessels of the United States
as they operate amid the
ancient mysteries of the
ocean depths. That peril is
that submarine navigators
don't have complete road
maps of the ocean floors. The
sea mount theory was con
' aidcred only because the Navy
Just doesn't know where all
the . underwater mountains
nd valleys are located.
This points up a critical
military problem, but it
stems fundamentally from
man'a abysmal ignorance
of the sea around him. As
Interior Secretary Stewart
Udall put It recently: "The
. ocean is the newest and
the last frontier of the
world. I would hasard a
guess that we know more
about the stars and the
space above us than we do
: about the water and the
land beneath it covering
more than two-thirds of
) this planet."
The problem caused by this
! basic ignorance has suddenly
become critical because the
Eiyssio
cold war has been extended today is attributable to the
imigoge ddd EScoce To Heach ioom off
Sea
to the ocean depths. The So
viet Union is concentrating
virtually all of its sea power
in a .mighty submarine force
of some 600 vessels, and the
United States is turning out
nuclear submarines "like
pancakes." as one congress
man put it. Consequently,
both nations have become in
tensely concerned about solv
ing the mysteries of the deep.
In a word, the united
States and Russia are locked
in a race to get to the bot
lnm of the ocean. In the
broadest sense.
For this reason the Ken
nedy administration with
out fanfare has expanded
significantly the govern
ment's oceanography pro
gram and laid out a decade-long
effort to conquer
the unknown.
A decade ago the fed
eral budget lor oceanog
raphy was about $10 to $15
million a year. Last year
it was $124 million; and
this year President Ken
nedy has asked Congress
for $156 million. During
the coming decede from
1963 to 1972 the govern
ment plans to spend over
$2 billion in oceanography,
making it a major thrust
of the U.S.A.
About 95 per cent of the
impetus for this expanded ef
fort Is military, according 10
kev government official.
Nevertheless, some 20 dif
fcrent federal agencies are
involved in oceanographich
research, civilian as well as
military. They are measur
ing ocean temperatures, sa
linity, currents and waves.
surveying the undulations of
the bottom, exploring the
mineral potential of the sea,
looking for ways of increas
ing and utilizing the vast fish
population, observing move
ment of icebergs, determin
ing the influence bf the ocean
on weather, and ascertaining
the affect of mans various
activities such as disposal of
atomic and industrial wastes
on the oceans.
Research in some of these
areas would be underway by
both federal and private re
search institutions even if
there were no threat from a
foreign power, but the ex
tent of the American effort
Need vacation money?
ti
r
-.lie
Russian submarine threat,
As a matter of fact, the
U.S. has shown almost
knee-jerk reaction to foreign
submarines. The history of
oceanographic studies shows
that the U.S. government
over the years has been vl
tally concerned only In di
rect proportion to the rise of
foreign threats to the nation s
security on the high seas or
beneath them.
It started in the first World
War when the German U-boat
proved a new menace. The
Navy reacted by developing
the crude hydrophones with
which to detect the slow, noisy
undersea craft. After the war,
further attempts to venture
into the unknown of the sea
lagged.
With the advent of World
War 11. German submarines
threatened once more. This
time they were improved
boats which could go down
to 400 feet. The Navy re
acted to the crisis by re
cruiting scientists for a new
thrust into the neglected
field of oceonography. This
lime they developed sonar,
an electronic device for de
tecting undersea objects by
sending out sound impulses
and receiving the echo
when it bounces off the object.
Both the hydrophone and
sonar were based on certain
principles learned by ocean
ographic research, chiefly the
peculiar characteristics of
sound waves as they travel
through water. There are
many variables which make
the art of detection and com
munication underwater ex
tremely difficult and uncer
tain - and this still baffles
scientists to a degree.
Today's standard sonar can
detect another vessel at a dis
tance of 4,000 to 5,000 yards,
or say three miles at most.
American engineers are work
ing on advanced design sonar
which they expect will extend
the reliable detection range
out to 30 miles.
U. S. scientists are also
working on ways of bouncing,
sound waves off the bottom
of the ocean for longer range
communication and detection.
While generally sound trav
els faster through water than
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a.eetfie tiOO, mmd t mm NMiaiff,
Suburban Site
Not Always Best
Business Move
New York - IUPII - The
growing number of office
building and plant sites In the
suburbs of major - metropol
itan areas is a familiar factor
In today's regional planning
layouts.
But the city vs. suburbs
choice in a selection of a site
for a new headquarters or
plant sometimes may be a
complex problem, not to be
settled on the basis of cost
alone or of convenience for
some employees or for some
portion of a company's oper
ation. Heart of the site selection
matter stems from the unde
niable fact that wherever you
set up operations, you have to
hnve people to run them.
With that in mind, the down
town site may sometimes as
sume a more attractive ap
pearance than originally ex-,
pected.
14-Story Tower
This was Ihe experience of
Phoenix Mutual, one of the
nation's leading insurance
firms, which later this year
will move into a new 14-story,
elliptical glass tower in down
town Hartford, Conn., a city
where a redevelopment pro
ject is well under way.
Five years ago, the com
pany was getting ready lo go
into Ihe suburbs of Hartford.
It had the land and the build
ing was under consideration
when it was decided to re
view the choice.
For months, in conjunction
with their architects and with
their personnel officers, com
pany executives reviewed the
advantages of one site against
the other. Much of their ma
terial they gathered from em
ployees. Some of the factors
considered were Intangible
such as would a move to the
suburbs put the company out
of touch with the (inani-il
and business establishments
of the city.
Selection finally was made
of Ihe city site.
MUSGH
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User Mm. Wire Ttwt. It N IM-Fri. 18 Is 7 P. M.
MISHAP KILLS DIVER
New York-IUPI-A skin diver
stabbed himself to death with
his own spear gun Sunday
when he was knocked olf bal
ance by a huge wave crash
ing against a stone Jetty near
Jones Beach. Authorities said
Robert Petty. 31, Westbury.
N.Y., was adjusting his face
mask and had wedged his
spear gun between rocks
when the wave came, impal
ing him on the spear.
through air, the scientists
must contend with such curi
ous phenomena as the banding
of sound waves as they pass
through the sea, and the in
fluence of water temperatures
and depth on the velocity of
sound waves.
These unique and trouble
some characteristics of the
ocean, plus the unknown con
tours of the ocean floor, sug
gest the military necessity for
the expanded oceanographic
program. The problem of the
unmapped ocean floor is more
recent than the one of sound
wave movement. For it wasn't
until after World War II that
occanographcrs d i s c o v ered
they were mistaken in assum
ing that the deep sea was not
simply a vast and compara
tively level plain.
They had known, for a
century of such major topo
graphic features as the At
lantic Ridge, a 10,000-mile
long range of peaks whose
highest summit, emerging
as the Asores. is 27.000 feet
above the ocean bed. And
they had known about deep
depressions such as the Min
danao Trench, an awesome
pit over six miles deep east
of the Philippines.
But until the 1940s they
didn't know that there are
about 160 flat-topped sea
mounts between Hawaii and
ihe Marianas. How many
others may rise from the
floor of ihe world's vast
ocean stretches remains to
be discovered.
The reason it is imperative
to find out such facts is that
advancing submarine engi
neering is producing vessels
which are capable of traveling
at greater speeds and with
standing the pressures of in
creasingly greater depths. As
one Navy spokesman put it:
"The task of navigating a
submarine at high speed and
deep submergence without
bottom information that is ac
curate and adequate can be
compared with diving a 10
ton truck on a freeway blind
folded." Inasmuch as America's most
prized submarines are equip
ped with nuclear Polaris mis
siles, a deterrent power in
which the United States has
a clear advantage over the
Soviets, the nation's military
strategists are anxious to re
move the blindfold from our
submarine skippers.
That is a prime task of
oceanography in America to
day. Next - What the Soviets are
up to.
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