Navy Electronics Laboratory events—the submerged voyage of USS "Nautilus" from the Pacific to the Atlantic, via the North Pole, in 1958, with NEL’s Dr. Waldo Lyon aboard as chief scientist and ice pilot. That same summer, the USS "Skate" cruised from the Atlantic to the North Pole and the central Arctic Ocean, surfacing 9 times through small holes in the ice cap. Dr. Eugene C. La Fond, head of NEL's Oceanography Branch, was chief scientist In March 1959, the "Skate" returned to the Arctic, under winter conditions, with Dr. Waldo Lyon as chief scientist, and for the first time, the nuclear submarine was
Old Pulteney Row To The Pole position on 25 August. It was the first time any surface vessel under human power had been to any pole position. The expedition was the first attempt at such a voyage and was made possible by the open water in the Arctic region in summer. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, part of the University of Colorado, the Arctic sea ice melted to its third smallest extent (since 1979, when satellite measurements began) in September 2010. Prior to 1979 ice extents are unreliable. The adventure was conceived by Scots adventurer Jock Wishart in 2007 when Wishart was