Nuclear-powered submarine (USS Nautilus)
Submarino de propulsión nuclear (USS Nautilus)
- Date
- 1954 · confidence high
- Place
- Electric Boat, Groton, Connecticut, United States
- Credited to
- Hyman Rickover (US Navy) and Westinghouse
- People
- 👤 Hyman Rickover1900–1986
- Field
- Movement
What it is
The first vessel powered by a nuclear reactor, able to stay submerged for months and cross the North Pole under the ice. Its pressurised-water reactor became the model for civil power plants.
What it led to
- Submarine nuclear deterrence (Polaris, Trident missiles)
- The pressurised-water reactor of commercial power plants
- Nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and icebreakers
Built on
Made possible
- Civil nuclear power plant1954-1957
- Ship's inertial navigation system (SINS)1958
- Nuclear icebreaker Lenin1957-1959
- Ballistic missile submarine (USS George Washington)1959-1960
- Small modular reactor (SMR) in commercial operation2023
- pressurised-water nuclear power plant (Shippingport)
- submarine-launched ballistic missiles