The Mercenary’s Cookbook

It turns out the historic search for the wreckage of the Titanic is more like something out of a Clive Cussler novel. It turns out, Dr. Bob Ballard’s discovery of the Titanic was actually cover for a top secret mission to inspect the nearby wreckage of nuclear submarines, the USS Thresher and USS Scorpion. The Thresher sank after a high-pressure pipe blew, causing the sub to lose power. The Scorpion, however, was thought to have perhaps been sunk by the Soviets:

[T]he USS Scorpion disappeared in 1968 amid speculation that it was sunk by Soviet forces.

Dr Ballard mapped both submarine wrecks using his newly developed underwater robot craft. He concluded that the most likely cause of the Scorpion’s destruction was being hit by a rogue torpedo it had fired itself.

Dr. Ballard also studied the nuclear reactors to see if they posed any environmental risk - a real question since the U.S. was considering sinking reactors at sea as a way to cut the nuclear fleet to comply with Salt II in the 80s.