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Just as a reminder, the idea of mining deep sea manganese nodules was developed by Howard Hughes' Glomar subsidiary in the 1970s as a cover story for the CIA's
by cstross 4y ago
Just as a reminder, the idea of mining deep sea manganese nodules was developed by Howard Hughes' Glomar subsidiary in the 1970s as a cover story for the CIA's Project AZORIAN, a project to build a "deep sea mining ship" (the Hughes Glomar Explorer) that would deploy a sub-surface barge (the HMB-1) with a giant grapple to raise the sunken Soviet nuclear missile submarine K-129.
As such the scheme had to be "sufficiently plausible bullshit" to withstand scrutiny, while not necessarily needing to be economically feasible.
(No, I'm not making this up.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian
- yardie 4y agoI had science books in middle school that when showing an example of manganese (for the chemical elements section), they included a shot of the Glomar Explorer mining it from the sea floor. That's how thorough the plausibility was to make it into public school textbooks.
- DaiPlusPlus 4y agoHuh... my textbook in GCSE geography class (early-to-mid-00s) had an illustration of an ROV-style undersea robot harvesting manganese nodules. I wasn't sure how that approach would scale...
- oldgradstudent 4y agoAccording to a book on project Azorian whose name I forgot claimed that the CIA hype on deep sea mining was so strong that some universities opened deep sea mining programs and recruited quite few students who were very surprised to discover that they spent years of study as part of the CIA cover story.
- AceJohnny2 4y agoFor context, above commenter wrote a wonderful James Bond pastiche novel inspired by Project Azorian, because how couldn't he: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14150.The_Jennifer_Morgue https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14150.The_Jennifer_Morgu...
- cstross 4y agoI'm not the only SF writer to have gone there, either: Harry Turtledove published one just this year! https://www.amazon.com/Three-Miles-Down-Harry-Turtledove-ebook/dp/B09C4FGMQJ/ https://www.amazon.com/Three-Miles-Down-Harry-Turtledove-ebo...
- ethbr0 4y agoWhen you're going to reply "And there was that Laundry reference too," and then notice that cstross was the "above commenter"...
- gpderetta 4y agoI came to this thread to post a laundry reference, but cstross beat me to it. Can't complain :)
- mherdeg 4y agoLast year I read a pretty good sf short story about deep-sea polymetallic nodule mining and went out and bought $34 of warrants on TMC, now worth $1.69. Ah well, I guess reading sf is not due diligence. I cannot for the life of me remember what the story was though -- I don't think it was Arula Ratnakar's "Submergence". Hmmm. Maybe it was "The Little Shepherdess"?
- Something1234 4y agoWait what is TMC? Is this like futures trading, but with less liquidity?
- ethbr0 4y agoSomething's good-ideaness is independent of both its current equity-price and its financials. A great investment is a good idea (rare) that also happens to be undervalued (relative to the market) and possess strong financials (ability to fund itself in the current macro climate).
- Aaronstotle 4y agoOn the other hand, now TMC at $1.69 seems like a good deal
- EdwardDiego 4y ago> Project Azorian (also called "Jennifer" by the press after its Top Secret Security Compartment) Ahhhh, hence The Jennifer Morgue.
- proee 4y agoMakes you wonder what companies are being used for cover stories today?
- 3327 4y ago
- ErikCorry 4y agoAt least one cryptography/security company is probably a front for a three letter agency. It used to be Crypto AG, but their cover was blown by Snowden. SpaceX's "going to Mars" plans are just a cover for a vehicle that can allow the USA to utterly dominate Low Earth Orbit. Best part is that Elon thinks it's real.
- tiahura 4y agoIt’s a pretty in the open quid pro quo. Musk gets Mars and US gets LEO.
- pcblues 4y agoI still think the "Going to Mars" plans are a stepping stone to mining the asteroids. The old book "Future Cities" from 1979 that I read as a kid (I'm 49 and I assume Musk and the other current billionaires did too) seems to be fuelling quite a few projects these days :) https://vdocument.in/the-usborne-book-of-the-future-558468df4f1e9.html https://vdocument.in/the-usborne-book-of-the-future-558468df...
- ErikCorry 4y agoI was mostly joking, but you must admit the symmetry of fake sea floor mining and fake asteroid mining is beautiful. What an amazing book.
- tjmc 4y agoI'd be amazed if some of the VPN providers aren't compromised
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoExtremely cool. The Soviets didn't even know where their sub was but we knew because of all of our hydrophones. My father spent time as a Marine stationed in Iceland to guard parts of SOSUS. They were heavily briefed and trained for encountering Spetsnaz.
- gooseyman 4y agoThis is where “I can neither confirm nor deny” comes from. It’s less widely known as the Glomar Response.
- Mister_X 4y agoMy father was an ME and EE and was one of the principle engineers on that project (of Clementine, the BIG claw that picked up the Russian Golf Class sub). I used to drive him to and from the Redwood City shipyard as there wasn't a lot of parking there. He also gave me 9 or 10 manganese nodules from the "test" mining run, which was the CIA cover story. They look like fist sized black to gray cauliflower heads. After the project was declassified he got a Presidential Commendation, which he framed and hung over the kitchen table.
- einarvollset 4y agoThat is amazingly cool.
- dylan604 4y ago>of Clementine, the BIG claw that picked up the Russian Golf Class sub while this is partially true, you're leaving out the part where Clementine ultimately broke the sub, dropped the sub, leaving the US with no sub. Not trying to cast aspersions on your dad or your memories, but the way you worded it makes it sound like it was successful if you didn't already know the full story. It's crazy to me how close to being successful this operation was, but the one aspect that people were suggesting was the biggest point of failure is exactly where it failed. of course, we have the luxury of hindsight.