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When the Deep Submergence System Project was established it included a
highly classified program for undersea vehicles that could descend to the
deeps and perform tasks more sophisticated than those of the Trieste II. This program also required that the operational capabilities
to be developed would be hidden from the Soviets and from anyone who did not have
an absolute "need to know".
A decision was made to build a second Trieste II in secret, to assign the
original Trieste II to the Deep Submergence Systems Project with the mission
to test the equipments that would be employed on the DSRV (and eventually
the NR-1). Great publicity was to be focused on the original Trieste II in
that mission role with the intent to keep the world oblivious to the
design, construction, development and operation of another more
sophisticated craft capable of clandestine operations in the deep ocean. |
