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On 12/3/2013 10:05 AM, cbullard@h... wrote: I remember the Thresher sinking. I was in college then. As best I understand, the usual practices shipyard practices (brazing, etc) turned out not be be up to the needs of deep-diving nuclear submarines. Probably (though I don't really know) the Navy had left the shipyard work in the hands of those who had always done it, without realizing that the old ways weren't good enough anymore. [Ironically, it now appears that the shipyard work wasn't responsible for the sinking after all - see http://www.designed4submariners.com/uploads/Docs_Thresher_and_Scorpion_Loss.pdf]. Same thing happened with the B2 bomber, BTW - some prototypes were wired incorrectly and not in accord with the design, because shop workers used "standard practice". Also the sub design didn't have much reserve buoyancy in case of serious trouble. As usual in a complex accident, there were many factors in play.See USS Thresher. "Too far, too fast." and look up the term Scope of Certification which came into use after that failure. At the time I wrote about in my previous post, the Thresher event was more than a decade in the past. It's demise probably led to the very high levels of quality assurance that we had to follow. These events don't repudiate Rickover's achievements, which were in any case I brought up to show that one-man strong oversight may be possible but it's always been extraordinary.
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