January 21: Father of the Nuclear Submarine

The world’s first nuclear submarine, U.S.S. Nautilus, was launched at Groton, Connecticut on this date in 1954. It was the first sub that could stay submerged for months at a time (diesel-engine subs required vast amounts of oxygen). The Navy’s nuclear program was headed by Hyman G. Rickover, a Polish-born Jew who came to the U.S. in 1905 at age 5. Admiral Rickover was the longest-serving naval officer in U.S. history when he was forced into retirement in 1982 after sixty-three years. In 1946, he became deputy manager of the Oak Ridge nuclear laboratory (home of the Manhattan Project), which was seeking to apply atomic fission to electricity-generation. Rickover became convinced of the potential of nuclear marine propulsion and made it his central project in the Navy — which has, thus far, never suffered a reactor accident. Nevertheless, in the year of his retirement, he testified to Congress that he did “not believe that nuclear power is worth it if it creates radiation. Then you might ask me why do I have nuclear powered ships. That is a necessary evil. I would sink them all. I am not proud of the part I played in it. I did it because it was necessary for the safety of this country. That’s why I am such a great exponent of stopping this whole nonsense of war.”

“I would forego all the accomplishments of my life, and I would be willing to forego all the advantages of nuclear power to propel ships, for medical research and for every other purpose of generating electric power, if we could have avoided the evolution of atomic explosives.” —Hyman Rickover