The cigarlike shape emerging above on the Groton, Conn. ways of the General Dynamics Corporation's Electric Boat Division is history's first atomic-powered weapons of war - SSN-571 (Submarine, Nuclear, Hull number 571), the U.S.S. Nautilus. When launched, the nautilus, with her four-foot atomic reactor feeding heat to her steam engine, will be the world's first ship able to stay under water indefinitely. (note that all dates and references are set up to august 1953)
She will be the fastest sub ever built, 25 knots submerged; the deepest-diving, more than 100 fathoms; the biggest U.S. sub, 3.000 tons and so roomy that construction headquarters are now set up inside her. She will have a blunt prow for faster underwater traveling. Another unblueprinted feature of SSN-571: the initials H.S.T. scrawled into the hull by former President Truman who, when he dedicated her last year, also paid tribute to her enormous significance for war and for peace as the world's first atomic "working power plant...the forerunner of atomic-powered merchant ships and airplanes, atomic power plants producing electricity for our factories, farms and homes."
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images and info provided by the LIFE Magazine / LIFE Magazine International / LIFE Magazine Atlantic ARCHIVE from the Zetu Harrys Collection
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