alt.hn

7/27/2026 at 10:42:11 PM

60 Years Ago, a Submerged Submarine Circled the Globe for the First Time (2020)

 https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a32009109/operation-sandblast-sumbarine-circumnavigation/

by baud147258

7/29/2026 at 5:35:18 PM

My uncle was on that voyage, serving as an enlisted mechanic.

The Triton's sail is currently at the USS Triton Sail Park in Richland, WA which is just south of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

https://www.nps.gov/places/000/uss-triton-sail-park.htm

The blue cranes in the background are occasionally used to pick up decomissioned submarine reactors from barges on the Columbia River.

by ludicrousdispla

7/29/2026 at 10:26:22 AM

My dad was based on a submarine when he was in the navy. He didn't talk much about it but maybe because it was just kind of boring. They would go to the North Pole/icecap and just sit under it for three months.

by comrade1234

7/29/2026 at 1:06:40 PM

A few years ago there was a short podcast on NPR about what it took for someone to be trained for submarine service. From what I remember, that training was far harder than any other navy training.

One thing I do remember, everyone had to have working knowledge of all components on the sub, how they remembered that is beyond me :)

I am curious about his size, I never saw anyone who worked on subs. I felt they would be smaller on average in size due to cramped conditions. I wonder if that is true ?

by jmclnx

7/29/2026 at 1:48:03 PM

I think my dad was around 5'10" or something like that.

For training, what he said is that they all had three(?) areas/responsibilities that they were trained in so that if someone got sick or died someone was available to take their place.

One of his jobs was actually to maintain one of the first computers installed on a submarine. He told an admiral that it was a big piece of shit because he spent half of his time replacing burned out vacuum tubes. The computer analyzed ship sounds (screw, engine) and could tell them the ship that was passing overhead.

by comrade1234

7/29/2026 at 2:08:41 PM

I am curious about his size, I never saw anyone who worked on subs. I felt they would be smaller on average in size due to cramped conditions.

I play music with a guy who was a weapons officer on a nuclear sub. I’m 6’/1.8m, and he’s noticeably taller than I am.

by mikestew

7/27/2026 at 10:54:19 PM

I can't find any of them now but there was a satirical series of posts on (I suspect usenet before) reddit about life on-board a nuclear submarine as an ordinary sailor.

That kind of humour often encodes realities of lived experience. Life inside a tube, sharing bunkbeds, sleeping next to machinery, toilets which explode, boredom and terror.

by ggm

7/28/2026 at 1:29:10 PM

while it's not on that kind of level, but the wikipedia page on operation Sandblast (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sandblast) has a few details on the daily life aboard, between weekly routine and maintaining the machinery. Also "Beach [the captain] maintained that the greatest challenge facing the crew was a seemingly mundane activity, garbage disposal and cleaning"

by baud147258

7/29/2026 at 7:16:36 AM

While a feet of engineering, purists point out this was not fully submerged. The sub returned to the surface regularly for navigation, poking up its periscopes for star fixes and photographs. The ability to navigate the world ocean totally free of the surface, perhaps spending months under ice, had not yet happened.

by sandworm101

7/29/2026 at 8:40:43 AM

That's them picking definitions. The ship stayed submerged the whole time. They just poked their periscope out and vented for air once a day or so. There was no other way to do it at the time. They surfaced once for a medical evacuation of a sailor - they didn't have to do that so I don't think that counts.

by bahmboo

7/29/2026 at 12:26:28 PM

How does a modern submarine navigates today?

by BrandoElFollito

7/29/2026 at 12:45:53 PM

Very classified so we only know bits and pieces. "Inertial navigation" is part of it - basically very precise dead reckoning. Using specialist equipment like laser ring gyros to get precise measurements.

Then also some other equipment like a magnetometer and magnetographic maps of the world to provide references to counteract the drift in any inertial navigation.

by rkangel

7/29/2026 at 1:04:12 PM

Thank you for the information - and what about communication? I don't think they have an antenna that reaches out to the surface?

by BrandoElFollito

7/29/2026 at 3:24:44 PM

Again, this is what we know about the state of the art 20 years ago:

For receiving (very very slowly) there is VLF, as the other comments have said. Can be done underwater. Think 160 character tweets that take minutes to arrive.

One option is to release a buoy that floats to the surface, waits a while and then transmits the payload. This allows the submarine to be out of the area when the transmission happens. This gets you "don't know where the sub is" but doesn't necessarily get you "didn't know there was even a sub there".

Alternatively, the submarine can come to periscope depth - so underwater but able to raise an antenna above the surface (or maybe close to it). Then something sophisticated like direct laser communication to a satellite can happen, allowing for high data rate bidirectional comms. Assuming you aren't detected by coming up, then this SHOULD allow for completely undetectable comms.

by rkangel

7/29/2026 at 1:40:26 PM

They can trail an antenna behind the boat underwater that receives low frequency radio waves carrying short signals that basically tell them to come up to a higher depth to receive a longer message.

by nocoiner

7/29/2026 at 8:31:41 AM

Nuclear Submarines are an outstanding marvel of technology and the men serving on them are the most trained and psychologically conditioned of all people. From a philosophical/psychological/physiological pov i think of them as sharing a lot of the characteristics of hardcore monks/yogis. Both must have absolute self-control at all times and follow a strict unbending discipline.

The following are some good resources;

Fast Attacks and Boomers: Submarines in the Cold War - https://americanhistory.si.edu/subs/index.html An online exhibition from the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. Lots of cool pictures.

How Nuclear-Powered Submarines Actually Work - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTCNwRvUcuo An in-depth interview with David Marquet, a former US Navy submarine commander. Includes short but great clips of the insides of a submarine.

Life On A Submarine - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZbJYfyIoeo A short documentary on the British Navy submarines.

Life on board a British nuclear submarine - https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/aug/21/life-on-board-nuc... A nice article from a reporter who went through the experience.

Submarine Insider on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@Submarineinsider

by rramadass

7/29/2026 at 10:04:26 AM

My cousin served more than a decade on nuclear subs and he is one of the least yogi/monk like people I’ve met. Virtually no one who knows him would say he exhibits lots of self control.

He just isn’t bothered by tight spaces or being underwater and he liked the regimented life the navy provided because it made up for his own lack of internal discipline.

I don’t know if he is normal or not on submarines but you certainly don’t have to be some guru to serve on them.

by kasey_junk

7/29/2026 at 2:46:04 PM

People only look at the "form" of a Yogi/Monk but forget the "function" behind their approach to life. Yogis/Monks follow a framework/discipline/practice which they apply towards their philosophical goals usually some "supra-normal states of consciousness" whatever name they might give to it.

But you can take that same framework/discipline/practice and adapt it to your own chosen goal viz. Science/Business/Sports/Education etc. This is what i meant in my above comment. For example, the practices of Zen Buddhism derived from Mahayana Buddhism were co-opted by the Samurai class of Japan for the performance of their duties i.e killing others or to sacrifice their own lives! This has got nothing to do with Buddhist goals but everything to do with more prosaic survival goals. Both of them are using the common philosophical/psychological/physiological (breath+body) techniques but for different purposes.

One very well-known all-encompassing framework/discipline/practice is "Ashtanga Yoga of Patanjali" detailed in the "Yoga Sutras". Read my previous comment here to understand how you can adapt it for any goal - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41538322

So when a Scientist focuses his entire energies (both mental and physical) that consumes his entire self to solve some problem he is sharing a characteristic of a Yogi for that time period. So does a student preparing for an exam, an engineer focused on solving a problem, a sportsman in the "flow state" etc.

You should now be able to see the parallels in the usage of the above framework by a submariner in the environment of a submarine. Outside of it he is no longer needed to practice that framework and thus can revert to his "ordinary civilian" self if he so chooses.

If you want to study more on the above see the excellent old classic; Yoga and Western Psychology: A Comparison by Geraldine Coster - https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.189086/mode/2u...

by rramadass

7/29/2026 at 9:49:21 AM

Wow, that National Museum of American History website is time capsule!

Preserved in pristine condition since the year 2000!

by firecall

7/29/2026 at 10:32:15 AM

Philosophically and psychologically I don’t think any monk of any religion would approve working on a weapon capable of razing cities to the ground.

by dudefeliciano

7/29/2026 at 3:16:31 PM

This is a very naive and wrong viewpoint.

Every Religion (and its underlying Philosophy) has the concepts of "Good vs. Evil", "Right vs. Wrong" etc. baked in. These are expressed as morals, ethics, rules, law, order, harmony etc. They can be relative across cultures/societies but there are also absolutes applicable for the whole of mankind.

In some Religions/Philosophies, the above concepts are not so simplistic but much more complex and nuanced. A good example is "Dharma (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma) vs. Adharma (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adharma)" and "Yin and Yang" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_and_yang).

These opposites wax and wane over time in a inter-related manner but for mankind to flourish the negatives must be suppressed and the positives enhanced. In order to maintain this balance, sometimes violence becomes necessary as a last resort in which case it is called "A Righteous and Just War".

by rramadass

7/29/2026 at 9:12:16 PM

And a few other things that made me think about your comment:

> for mankind to flourish the negatives must be suppressed and the positives enhanced.

This, to me, shows a profound misunderstanding of taoist teachings. Nothing should be forced or suppressed, that is antithetical to wu wei or any idea of balance/equilibrium.

And I know you were referring to just the phyisical discomfort of nuclear submarine sailors, but that's the whole point, they may have some abilities that are close to those of a monk, like focus and concentration and adapation, but the wisdom is severely lacking. If you dedicate your life energy to work on a nuclear submarine, which has as its purpose to launch retaliatory strikes in an all out nuclear conflict, what does that say about your wisdom?

And wisdom is the main thing we should take away from all these teachings. The meditation, calmness, focus etc...those are all secondary products.

This is my understanding, and the gripe i have is with westerners using eastern philosophy to "improve their productivity" or "become better leaders", that is not the point and in my opinion close to blasphemy. And so is comparing soldiers to monks IMHO.

by dudefeliciano

7/29/2026 at 4:03:41 PM

Are there monks teaching and practicing adharma? Where does the Buddha condone violence or killing?

by dudefeliciano