In the depths of the cold war, the new nuclear submarine USS Triton made the first underwater circumnavigation of the globe in just 84 days. During this covert mission, the crew collected oceanographic and gravitational data, discovered an undersea peak in the mid-Atlantic Ocean and studied the response of human beings to a closed and cramped environment - information deemed useful by the burgeoning US space programme.The pioneering 1960 mission deliberately followed most of the route of the first-ever Earth circumnavigation, by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan and his crew in 1519-22. That expedition limped home after three years, sans leader, 86% of its men and four of its five ships.
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