BENEATH THE SURFACE Sleek and deadly black submarines glide through the dark depths of the oceans killer machines ready to strike at a moment’s notice Famous inventor Leonardo da Vinci had an idea for an underwater vessel in the 1500s but he kept his sketches a secret because he was worried about their misuse Secretive by their very nature the development of submarines has always been powered by the latest and most closely guarded science GOING NUCLEAR Like nearly all transportation most ships depend on fossil fuels such as oil coal and natural gas to run motors Burning fossil fuels creates pollution and the planet does not have an unlimited supply of these fuels Refueling also requires making regular stops which is something that stealthy military submarines prefer not to do The use of nuclear power for ships was originally a top-secret suggestion considered by the U S government in the 1940s By 1989 there were more than 400 nuclear powered submarines globally A nuclear reactor produces energy by splitting the nuclei of atoms the tiny particles that are the building blocks for everything Russia keeps the designs of its submarines top secret but gave the world a glimpse of its Vladikavkaz sub codenamed Paltus during a 2018 parade 6
on Earth A risk of nuclear reactors is that if they accidentally release that energy particularly in a small hard-to-escape space such as a submarine it is deadly In 1961 this happened onboard the Soviet submarine K-19 killing 22 crewmen SECRET SUBS The U S navy’s designs for new nuclear submarines are a closely guarded secret At present navy designers are at work on a faster more powerful submarine the Columbia-class The cost of designing the vessels without even building one is estimated at 4 2 billion The Columbia-class will have propellers turned by super-quiet electric motors making them stealthier than other subs Currently all U S navy submarines are nuclear powered DARK SCIENCE SECRETS In 2015 the United States and China agreed to a truce banning private companies from using the Internet to steal trade secrets Three years after signing the truce Chinese hackers got into the computers of a company working for the U S navy Information about submarine and undersea weapons technology was stolen This means that China now knows what weapons are carried by U S submarines and at what distance U S submarines can detect enemy submarines This will give the Chinese an advantage in the event of any hostilities between China and the United States 7
PROTECTING SECRETS Companies need to protect their new money-making inventions from being copied by others Patents are licenses that give owners the sole right to make and profit from their inventions for a set period of time Patents are important because they prevent original ideas from being used by someone else while an invention is being perfected which can take a long time PROBLEMS WITH PATENTS A problem with patents is that they often contain technical information about an invention so once a patent is approved by the U S Patent and Trademark Office USPTO it becomes public knowledge New inventions can be worth billions of dollars because companies need new technology to stay ahead of their rivals Sometimes companies decide that keeping the details of an invention secret is a better choice so they decide not to patent their invention 8
TESLA TROUBLES In 2018 the automaker Tesla was sued by a hydrogen truck company Nikola Motors Hydrogen-powered vehicles are a new technology that uses the energy in hydrogen atoms The hydrogen energy is usually released by a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen in a fuel cell A fuel cell changes that energy into electrical energy Nikola Motors claimed Tesla copied their patents and that Tesla’s all-electric semi truck has similarities to their own hydrogen electric semi-truck These include such things as the aerodynamic body Curved shapes and transportation trucks do not mix as they are designed to maximize space making them boxy An aerodynamic truck faces less air resistance which means it needs less fuel to travel at the same speed Nikola claimed the aerodynamic shape of their semi-truck was a unique design feature and sued Tesla for 2 billion DARK SCIENCE SECRETS In 2016 pictures of one weird bus went viral China’s Transit Elevated Bus TEB was extra-wide and ran on tall legs rather like a moving bridge so it straddled traffic The city of Beijing built special tracks for the giant electric-powered vehicle However there were immediate doubts that the bus was strong enough to hold the weight of passengers In 2017 a prototype bus stalled mid-track Police investigated and arrested 32 of the people behind TEB on suspicion of fraud because they had made false claims about the bus to get people to invest their money The prototype now rusts in storage 9 The TEB shown here as a model stood 16 feet 5 m tall and was 26 feet 8 m wide
