This vision now encompasses sevelal thrusts for the design and operation of new ships: ships should be able to operate in U.S., foreign, and international waters without degradation of mission or quality of life attributable to environmental laws and regulations; ships should cause no significant adverse environmental impacts; ships must be designed and operated to minimize waste generation; wastes should be treated or destroyed on board to the extent practicable; and waste-related logistics cost and shore dependence should be minimized. The vision focuses on ships that will be designed in the next century. Because these plaiforms are not yet on the drawing board; they offer the greatest opportunity to integrate advanced waste management technologies, minimize ship space devoted to pollution control, and reduce the manning burden of sorting and handling wastes. To achieve the CNO vision, designers and naval architects must consider environmental compliance as a "top-level" design requirement commensurate with military priorities. New-design platforms are the primary focus of the environmentally sound ship vision because they provide the "clean slate" needed for the most revolutionary approaches to environmental compliance, but ships being constructed to an existing desig, and even some existing ships, can adopt evolationary environmental improvements.
NAVY SHIPBOARD REQUIREMENTS
Although there are obvious similarities, Navy ships, and especially submarines, are very different from commercial and passenger ships in terms of mission, design, ship systems, manning, performance, and operating scenarios . Special features of Navy ships and submarines compared to these other vessels include:
・Underway for significantly longer durations, with less frequent port calls
・Special military requirements for stealth, maneuverability, speed, and at-sea replenishment
・Densely packed with weapons, combat systems, propulsion systems, and machinery
・Unique military requirements for survivability and damage control (continue to operate and fight subsequent to battle damage)
・Operate in more extreme weather and sea conditions
・Frequent turnover of crews and system operators
・Sailors maintain and repair most equipment without direct shoreside support
・Closed atmosphere and long submergences in submarines.
Equipment and systems intended for shipboard installation, operation, and support must meet a Navy-unique combination of physical and systems integration demands related to: size and space; weight; vibration; shock (usually Grede B for environmental equipment); corrosive environments; electromagnetic compatibility with other shipboard equipment; ship signgtures (thermal, acoustic, magnetic); ship movement (pitch and roll); manning aud automation; reliability and maintainability; safety, health, and sanitation; and survivability and damage control (fire, fiooding, chemical/biological/radiological protection). Submarines, in particular, represent a rather extreme environment because of their long and solitary operation (fewer opportunities to offload waste), absence of underway resupply (must carry everything needed to support the crew for months), cramped quarters (little room to hold wastes), and the valnerability of the boat and crew while submerged(closed atmosphere with attendant health, fire, and other risks).
It has been the Navy's experience that commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) waste processing equipment and systems typicaily do not perform well for extended periods on warships because of the limited space, harsh environment, special military requirments, emergency response constraints, and long logistics "tail." For ths reason, the Navy has had to occasionally design or modify equipment to meet Fleet objectives. The tradition of "MILSPEC" equipment and systems provided the Navy with control of design, configuration, and integnted logistics support (ILS).
