Project AZORIAN, which was eventually known inaccurately to the general public as Project Jennifer, was the CIA's audacious attempt to recover the K-129 wreck using a specially designed salvage vessel named the Hughes Glomar Explorer. Representing the most modern missile-carrying submarine then in the Soviet inventory, the K-129 offered the US a cornucopia of unique intelligence targets, ranging from nuclear weapons to cryptographic systems and other equipment. But retrieving it required $1.8 billion (in today's dollars) and more than six years to design and build the equipment that could do the impossible.