Craig T. Mullen (born October 4, 1943) is a deep-sea explorer who is notable for extensive technological and research contributions to the world of underwater exploration.
Craig Mullen was a Navy diving officer during the Vietnam War and served in the Navy's Deep Submergence Program Office and as the Director of Operations at the Navy's Supervisor of Diving, Salvage and Ocean Engineering. Mullen served two tours in Vietnam, finishing his naval service directing the missing in action search for air crews lost at sea off the coast of Vietnam. He led a team of civilian technicians and divers in searching for remains among the aircraft wreckage located by sonar.[ citation needed ]
In 1974, Mullen joined Alcoa Marine, [1] a subsidiary of the Aluminum Company of America, as the Vice President of Operations. He directed the operations of the company's state-of-art deep ocean research vessel R/V Alcoa Seaprobe, which provided the first photos of the USSMonitor off Cape Hatteras, South Carolina. The Seaprobe, an all-aluminum vessel built specifically for deep ocean research and recovery, had a unique search pod utilizing experimental sonar and state-of-the-art cameras to sweep the ocean floor and transmit sonar and image data the ship, which was up to three miles above.
In 1980 he was part of a management buy-out that acquired Alcoa's interests in ALCOA Marine, Inc. He initially served as its vice president of operations and later as president and a member of its board of directors.
After the buy-out, ALCOA Marine was renamed Eastport International and became a world leader in deep ocean technology development and operations. Eastport set private sector depth records for successful undersea operations in water depths in excess of 5,000 meters as early as 1991. Eastport was the Navy's choice to support its deep ocean search and recovery needs for over and played a key role in projects including the recovery of the space shuttle Challenger, [2] the search for Korean Air Lines Flight 007, the recovery of the South African Airways Helderberg SA 182, the recovery of TWA Flight 800, as well as many classified military recoveries. [3] [4] [5]
Under Mullen's guidance, Eastport worked internationally and was selected by foreign governments (South Africa, Austria, Italy, Japan, Korea), Lloyd's of London, and various private parties to locate, document, and recover shipwrecks, aircraft, and space hardware from record-breaking depths in all of the world's oceans. Eastport was also an early leader in the development of robotic technology now used by international telecommunications firms to install and service subsea fiber optic telecommunications/data cables and adapted for theme park usage. Eastport also redesigned and rebuilt the Jaws ride for Universal Studios and later, multiple water placed dinosaur action-animatronics in the Islands of Adventure ride, taking its engineering skills in an entirely new direction.
In 1993 Mullen negotiated a merger between Eastport and Oceaneering International, Inc., [6] a major, publicly-traded, international oilfield services company with growing government business, and remained the President of a newly formed subsidiary, Oceaneering Advanced Technologies (OTECH) Group. The new subsidiary contained all of Oceaneering's non-oilfield businesses including US Navy search and recovery, Space Systems, Environmental Services, Marine Construction and Ocean Cable Operations. Mullen led Oceaneering Technologies for over five years, diversifying its business base and growing revenues.
In 1998 Mullen formed Sconset Marine, and was active in assisting technology start-up companies manage business development, raising capital, and guide technology development.
In 2003 Mullen co-founded the AURORA Trust Foundation [7] to advance the world's understanding of the ocean environment and its submerged cultural heritage. AURORA is active in the Mediterranean, discovering numerous ancient shipwreck sites. In 2004, Mullen co-founded the venture firm HLP-Capital to invest in international business opportunities, primarily in the Mediterranean, in the process also creating two new marine companies, Deep Blue Surveys [8] (engaged in hydrographic surveys) and Deep Blue Ship Charters (active in the luxury yacht industry).
Mullen has traveled and published widely, and has worked in most of the counties bordering the Mediterranean Sea from Lebanon to Spain. He is at ease working at the executive and high levels of government.
Mullen is a Fellow of the Explorers Club and has carried five Explorers Club expedition flags on major ocean expeditions to Malta, Ventotene, Syracuse Sicily, Hvar Croatia and the Florida Keys.
He is on the Board of Directors for the Marine Resources Development Foundation. [9]
Deep Submergence Vessel NR-1 was a unique United States Navy (USN) nuclear-powered ocean engineering and research submarine, built by the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics at Groton, Connecticut. NR-1 was launched on 25 January 1969, completed initial sea trials 19 August 1969, and was home-ported at Naval Submarine Base New London. NR-1 was the smallest nuclear submarine ever put into operation. The vessel was casually known as "Nerwin" and was never officially named or commissioned. The U.S. Navy is allocated a specific number of warships by the U.S. Congress, but Admiral Hyman Rickover avoided using one of those allocations for the construction of NR-1 in order to circumvent the oversight that a warship receives from various bureaus.
Underwater archaeology is archaeology practiced underwater. As with all other branches of archaeology, it evolved from its roots in pre-history and in the classical era to include sites from the historical and industrial eras. Its acceptance has been a relatively late development due to the difficulties of accessing and working underwater sites, and because the application of archaeology to underwater sites initially emerged from the skills and tools developed by shipwreck salvagers. As a result, underwater archaeology initially struggled to establish itself as actual archaeological research. This changed when universities began teaching the subject and a theoretical and practical base for the sub-discipline was firmly established in the late 1980s. Underwater archaeology now has a number of branches including, maritime archaeology: the scientifically based study of past human life, behaviours and cultures and their activities in, on, around and (lately) under the sea, estuaries and rivers. This is most often effected using the physical remains found in, around or under salt or fresh water or buried beneath water-logged sediment. In recent years, the study of submerged WWII sites and of submerged aircraft in the form of underwater aviation archaeology have also emerged as bona fide activity.
Robert Duane Ballard is an American retired Navy officer and a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island who is most noted for his work in underwater archaeology: maritime archaeology and archaeology of shipwrecks. He is best known for the discoveries of the wrecks of the RMS Titanic in 1985, the battleship Bismarck in 1989, and the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown in 1998. He discovered the wreck of John F. Kennedy's PT-109 in 2002 and visited Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana, who saved its crew.
A remotely operated underwater vehicle is a tethered underwater mobile device, also commonly called an underwater robot.
South African Airways Flight 295(SA295/SAA295) was a scheduled international passenger flight from Chiang Kai-shek International Airport, Taipei, Taiwan, to Jan Smuts International Airport, Johannesburg, South Africa, with a stopover in Plaisance Airport, Plaine Magnien, Mauritius. On 28 November 1987, the aircraft serving the flight, a Boeing 747-200 Combi named Helderberg, experienced a catastrophic in-flight fire in the cargo area, broke up in mid-air, and crashed into the Indian Ocean east of Mauritius, killing all 159 people on board. An extensive salvage operation was mounted to try to recover the aircraft's flight recorders, one of which was recovered from a depth of 4,900 metres (16,100 ft).
John Piña Craven was an American scientist who was known for his involvement with Bayesian search theory and the recovery of lost objects at sea. He was Chief Scientist of the Special Projects Office of the United States Navy.
The U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program (NMMP) is a program administered by the U.S. Navy which studies the military use of marine mammals - principally bottlenose dolphins and California sea lions - and trains animals to perform tasks such as ship and harbor protection, mine detection and clearance, and equipment recovery. The program is based in San Diego, California, where animals are housed and trained on an ongoing basis. NMMP animal teams have been deployed for use in combat zones, such as during the Vietnam War and the Iraq War.
Marine engineering is the engineering of boats, ships, submarines, and any other marine vessel. Here it is also taken to include the engineering of other ocean systems and structures – referred to in certain academic and professional circles as “ocean engineering.”
The JIM suit is an atmospheric diving suit (ADS), which is designed to maintain an interior pressure of one atmosphere despite exterior pressures, eliminating the majority of physiological dangers associated with deep diving. Because there is no need for special gas mixtures, nor is there danger of nitrogen narcosis or decompression sickness ; the occupant does not need to decompress when returning to the surface. It was invented in 1969 by Mike Humphrey and Mike Borrow, partners in the English firm Underwater Marine Equipment Ltd (UMEL), assisted by Joseph Salim Peress, whose Tritonia diving suit acted as their main inspiration. The suit was named after Jim Jarrett, Peress' chief diver.
Aluminaut was the world's first aluminum submarine. An experimental vessel, the 80-ton, 15.5-metre (51 ft) crewed deep-ocean research submersible was built by Reynolds Metals Company, which was seeking to promote the utility of aluminum. Aluminaut was based in Miami, Florida, and was operated from 1964 to 1970 by Reynolds Submarine Services, doing contract work for the U.S. Navy and other organizations, including marine biologist Jacques Cousteau.
Salvage diving is the diving work associated with the recovery of all or part of ships, their cargoes, aircraft, and other vehicles and structures which have sunk or fallen into water. In the case of ships it may also refer to repair work done to make an abandoned or distressed but still floating vessel more suitable for towing or propulsion under its own power. The recreational/technical activity known as wreck diving is generally not considered salvage work, though some recovery of artifacts may be done by recreational divers.
Oceaneering International, Inc. is a subsea engineering and applied technology company based in Houston, Texas, U.S. that provides engineered services and hardware to customers who operate in marine, space, and other environments.
David Louis Mearns, OAM, M.Sc., is an American-born United Kingdom based marine scientist and oceanographer, who specializes in deep water search and recovery operations, and the discovery of the location of historic shipwrecks.
VideoRay ROVs are a series of inspection class underwater submersible remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROV). VideoRay ROVs are operated from a suitcase-sized control panel connected to either a copper or fiber-optic tether which is then connected to the submersible.
Capt. Willard Franklyn "Bill" Searle Jr. USN (ret.) was an American ocean engineer who was principally responsible for developing equipment and many of the current techniques utilized in United States Navy diving and salvage operations.
NOAAS Okeanos Explorer is a converted United States Navy ship, now an exploratory vessel for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), officially launched in 2010. Starting in 2010, NOAA entered into a five-year partnership with the San Francisco Exploratorium. The focus is on gathering scientific information about oceans for the public as well as for scientific uses. As much as 95% of the ocean remains unexplored, NOAA officials said. The ship is equipped with cameras and will provide real-time viewing of the ocean floor for scientists and for the public.
Lucona was a ship sunk in the Indian Ocean on 23 January 1977 by a bomb planted by Austrian businessman Udo Proksch, as part of an insurance fraud. Proksch, the owner of the cargo, also then-owner of famous Viennese confectioners Demel, claimed 212 million schilling from his insurance company, saying that the cargo was expensive uranium mining equipment. He was subsequently convicted in 1991 of the murder of six crew who were killed by the explosion, and died in prison.
CURV-III was the fourth generation of the United States Navy Cable-controlled Undersea Recovery Vehicle (CURV). CURV was a prototype for remotely operated underwater vehicles and a pioneer for teleoperation. It became famous in 1966 when CURV-I was used to recover a hydrogen bomb from the floor of the Mediterranean Sea. In 1973, CURV-III performed the deepest underwater rescue in history when it rescued two men 1,575 feet (480 m) from the ocean surface who were stranded 76 hours in the submersible Pisces III with just minutes of air remaining. The CURV-III became known in the Great Lakes region in 1976 when it was used to survey the wreck of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald. CURV-21 is the current generation that replaced CURV-III.
Phoenix International Holdings, Inc. (Phoenix) is a marine services company that performs manned and unmanned underwater operations worldwide. Phoenix was incorporated in 1996 as Phoenix Marine, Inc. and started doing business in 1997. It changed its name in January 2000 to Phoenix International, Inc., and then to Phoenix International Holdings, Inc. in November 2007, when it became an employee-owned company.
Underwater exploration is the exploration of any underwater environment, either by direct observation by the explorer, or by remote observation and measurement under the direction of the investigators. Systematic, targeted exploration is the most effective method to increase understanding of the ocean and other underwater regions, so they can be effectively managed, conserved, regulated, and their resources discovered, accessed, and used. Less than 10% of the ocean has been mapped in any detail, less has been visually observed, and the total diversity of life and distribution of populations is similarly obscure.