November-class submarine Komsomol" was first underway under nuclear power on 4 July 1958 and became also the first Soviet submarine to reach the North Pole in July 1962, 4 years after the USS "Nautilus". Project 627 had much better performance specifications (for example, submerged speed and depth) than the world's first operational nuclear-powered submarine USS "Nautilus". The first commander of "K-3" was Captain 1st Rank L.G. Osipenko (future admiral and Hero of the Soviet Union). All other Novembers except "K-3" belonged to modified project – project 627A. The main visual differences of project 627A were a bow sonar dome in the keel
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea Wilkins. Calvert wrote the book "Surface at the Pole" about this and the other Arctic missions of USS "Skate." The film "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" begins with "Seaview" in the Arctic for the final phase of her sea trials, including a dive under the ice cap. Two milestones in underwater exploration were achieved in 1960, the year before "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" was released. On January 23, 1960, Jacques Piccard and Lieutenant Don Walsh (USN), in the bathyscaphe "Trieste", made the first descent to the bottom of the Challenger Deep. The Challenger Deep is