Climate of the Arctic continuously, with 30 stations in the Arctic from 1950 to 1991. These stations collected data that are valuable to this day for understanding the climate of the Arctic Basin. shows the location of Arctic research facilities during the mid-1970s and the tracks of drifting stations between 1958 and 1975. Another benefit from the Cold War was the acquisition of observations from United States and Soviet naval voyages into the Arctic. In 1958 an American nuclear submarine, the "Nautilus" was the first ship to reach the North Pole. In the decades that followed submarines regularly roamed under the Arctic sea ice,
USS Sand Lance (SSN-660) Connecticut, where she became a member of Submarine Squadron 2. In 1996, the Sand Lance was sent on a patrol to the Arctic Circle. While there, the submarine surfaced through the polar ice cap at the North Pole on 12 July. "Sand Lance" was decommissioned on 7 August 1998 and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register the same day. Her scrapping via the Nuclear-Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, began on 1 April 1998 and was completed on 30 August 1999. Sand Lance's Maneuvering Room Consoles, which were used to control the