Robert W. Morse Sr. and the NR-1 Submarine
San Francisco Chronicle 23jan01
He developed, with Adm. Hyman Rickover, the NR-1, a small nuclear submarine capable of prowling the deep ocean floor. |
Robert W. Morse, a physicist who had been a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, assistant secretary of the Navy, a dean at Brown University and president of Case Western Reserve University, died Friday in Falmouth, Mass.
He was a resident of North Falmouth, Mass., and was 79.
Professor Morse, whose specialties in physics were superconductivity and underwater acoustics, was a graduate student, professor and chairman of the Physics Department at Brown in Providence, R.I., with a year off as a Fulbright fellow at Cambridge University in England.
While at Brown, he was president of the Acoustical Society of America and a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, and served as chairman of its Committee on Undersea Warfare.
As a member of the academy's Project Nobska in 1956, the World War II Navy veteran was instrumental in the creation of Polaris missile submarines.
In 1962, Professor Morse was appointed dean of the college of Brown University, a position he held until 1964 when President Lyndon Johnson appointed him assistant secretary of the Navy for research and development. While in that office he developed, with Adm. Hyman Rickover, the NR-1, a small nuclear submarine capable of prowling the deep ocean floor. The NR-1 is no longer top secret, and now is used for peaceful oceanographic research.
Growing disillusioned with the Vietnam War, Professor Morse left the Navy Department in 1966 to become president of the Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland, and a year later presided over the merger of Case with Western Reserve University.
As president of the new Case Western Reserve University from 1967 to 1971, Professor Morse found himself in the midst of the student revolution in a city torn apart by racial rioting. He took pride in the fact that he never had to call the police to quell a campus disruption. He and his administrators talked to the students instead.
Professor Morse also tried to heal racial division in Cleveland by serving as an honorary campaign chairman for Carl Stokes, who was elected the first African American mayor of a major American city.
Professor Morse also was the first university president in Ohio to speak out against the National Guard's attack on students at Kent State University, calling it "an act of assassination against American youth."
After conflicts with a conservative board of trustees, in 1971 Professor Morse moved to Cape Cod, where he was appointed director of research at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. In 1973 he became associate director, senior scientist and dean of graduate studies, and helped found Woods Hole's joint Ph. D. program with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1979, he became director of Woods Hole's Marine Policy Center, a post he held until he left the oceanographic institution in 1983.
In 1999, Professor Morse endowed the Robert W. Morse Chair for Excellence in Oceanography to support research at Woods Hole. In honor of his late wife, last year he created the Alice Cooper Morse Fund for the Performing Arts at Bowdoin College, from which he had received his bachelor's degree.
Professor Morse took the most joy in teaching. For years, he taught beginning physics at Brown by having the students recreate 10 of the great physics experiments in history. Professor Morse's son Rob, a columnist for The Chronicle, recalls once meeting one of his father's former students who said Morse's Physics 1 was the best course he took at Brown. When asked what grade he got, the former student said he got a D.
Professor Morse is survived by his children, Robert W. Morse Jr. of Mill Valley, James P. Morse of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and Pamela Morse Moschetti of North Falmouth; and grandchildren, Julia and Elizabeth Morse of Cleveland Heights, Zachary Tellier of Manchester, N.H., James Tellier of Bellevue, Wash., and Daniel Tellier of Groton, Mass.
Donations may be made to the Visiting Nurses Association of Cape Cod Inc., 67 Ter Heun Drive, Falmouth MA 02540; or to the JML Care Center, 184 Ter Heun Drive, Falmouth, MA O2540.
Inside NR-1:
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Although living conditions are cramped by the standards of surface ships, NR-1 is very roomy compared with other deep submersibles. The living quarters accommodate ten crew members and two to three scientists.
NR-1 is able to land on the seafloor on a pair of retractable wheels and can lift heavy objects with a manipulator arm system. NR-1's major strength, however, is the ability to provide a stable platform and abundant electric power for surveillance missions of two weeks or longer.
The world's smallest nuclear submarine, NR-1 was built in 1969 but has been continually upgraded to provide outstanding capabilities for military surveillance and marine research at mid-ocean depths (3,000 feet).
Outfitting NR-1 with advanced imaging systems such as laser line scanners and subbottom chirpers will allow cruise participants to study Gulf of Mexico reef systems in unprecedented detail and resolution.
Laser Light Scan System
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Geo-rectified Mosaics: With use of ER-Mapper and PV Wave software the individual swaths of laser line scan data are corrected and joined into high-resolution images covering 100's of square meters of sea-floor area.
X-Star Subbottom Chirper: This is a subbottom profiler that uses 2-16 kHz transducers. Full digital display and data logging will generate data sets that can be used to understand the shallow geological features of hydrocarbon seeps and deep reefs.
Navigation
Long Base-Line acoustic transponders (Benthos TR6000 system) will provide sub-meter accuracy for mosaic georectification.
Ultra Short Base-Line acoustic tracking (Nautronics ATS system) will provide continuous positioning for long-range surveys.
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