http://seattletimes.nwsource.com, A Navy ship that once prowled the globe for Soviet submarines will be transformed into a research vessel on a par with Jacques Cousteau's famed Calypso, government scientists said yesterday in Seattle, where the USNS Capable is temporarily berthed.
“We want it to become the icon vessel for ocean exploration,” said Stephen Hammond, acting director of the Office of Exploration in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). “If I were a betting man, I would say the chances are excellent this ship is going to make some very fundamental discoveries.”
The Navy handed the 224-foot ship over to NOAA in a formal ceremony at the oceanic agency's marine-operations center on Lake Union. The Navy is also providing $18 million to outfit the vessel with state-of-the-art sonar to map the ocean floor; gear to accommodate robotic, deep-sea probes; and laboratories for examining strange creatures plucked from the depths.
The ship will be the first NOAA research vessel dedicated solely to the ocean-exploration program's mission of surveying the seas
