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Vessel inactivated after nearly 40 years of service with no replacement in sight

By Jennifer Grogan Published on 11/22/2008
The Day

Groton - The NR-1 opened up a “unique and irreplaceable window on our undersea world,” retired Adm. Edmund P. Giambastiani Jr. said Friday during an inactivation ceremony for the submarine that effectively closed that window.

”To the nation and the Navy, how do you open it again?” asked Giambastiani, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was the NR-1’s officer in charge in the early 1980s.

Giambastiani also called for a more robust program of undersea exploration, saying scientists know more about the back of the moon than the bottom of the ocean.

The Naval Research Vessel (NR-1), the Navy’s only nuclear-powered, deep-diving ocean engineering and research submarine, was in service for almost 40 years.

The ceremony drew high-ranking military officials, politicians and former crew members to the Naval Submarine Base to say goodbye and to celebrate the accomplishments of the ship and its crews.

Many said it was a bittersweet ceremony since the Navy currently has no plans to build another submarine like NR-1.

The Navy will use remotely operated vehicles, and in some cases manned vehicles, to perform the missions NR-1 once undertook, said Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert, U.S. Fleet Forces commander.

”We don’t have, I think, currently in commission a replacement for NR-1,” said Greenert, who served as the engineer officer on the NR-1 in the early 1980s. “But when we talk capabilities, there are a whole host of options out there.”

Although most of its work in the ocean depths involved assignments that the Navy does not discuss, some of NR-1’s high-profile missions included retrieving pieces of the space shuttle Challenger when it blew up after takeoff in 1986, and the engines from Egyptair Flight 990 after it crashed off the coast of New England in 1999.

NR-1 has searched for shipwrecks around the world. Its crew worked with Robert Ballard, founder and president of the Institute For Exploration at the Mystic Aquarium, to search for evidence of early Native American settlements now under water.

On its final deployment, the crew helped a local foundation look for the wreck of John Paul Jones’ Revolutionary War ship, Bonhomme Richard.

Ballard, who used NR-1 at least 10 times, said the scientific community has lost a “tremendous asset.”

”I’m sad to see it go, especially since there are no plans to replace it,” Ballard said in a phone interview Friday. “It really is a loss.”

Cmdr. John P. McGrath, officer in charge, said the months he spent under way on NR-1 were the most “thrilling, challenging, terrifying and personally rewarding moments” of his career.

”No one leaves NR-1 without realizing how significant it was in their lives,” McGrath said.

The NR-1 will now go to Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, where its fuel will be removed, and then to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Washington, where its nuclear reactor will be removed and the ship dismantled.

The Submarine Force Library and Museum Association and NR-1 supporters are currently lobbying the Navy to send the submarine back to Groton once the reactor is removed. Their hope is that NR-1 will become a part of the U.S. Navy Submarine Force Museum, which is already home to the USS Nautilus (SSN 571), the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine.

J.GROGAN@THEDAY.COM