Lot of nice conspriracy theory items coming up, particularly regarding Glomar Explorer. This was not a recovery vessel, it was a deep drilling rig which just happened to be ideal as a base for the real recovery vessel, which was a submerged barge. This vessel (if it still exists) is too small (Oscar 15000 t, Golf 3000t and it couldn't lift all of that) and not needed as Kursk is shallow enough (and public enough) to be recovered by conventional means. The main reason for cutting the bow off is that it is unstable and if they try and lift it bits are liable to break off, wrecking their CG calculations and likely sinking the whole thing again. It is unlikely that any evidence of what caused the original explosion would be found, any evidence being destroyed by the second explosion and a years exposure to sea water. After the british torpedo accident it was decided that HTP was too dangerous for torpedo use, although I doubt that we told the Russians. No russian satellites have been caught by shuttles because the shuttle cannot get high enough, and even if the USAF had considered it, they would have rejected it as too dangerous to try and recover an unknown satellite probably containing volatile fuels, they had enough problems recovering their own failed satellites. There have been many classified military shuttle (STS)flights but these are mainly concerned with launching satellites.