''. The idea for a nuclear-powered submarine was first proposed in the
United States Navy by the
Naval Research Laboratory's physicist
Ross Gunn in 1939. The
Royal Navy began researching designs for
nuclear propulsion plants in 1946. Construction of the world's first nuclear-powered submarine was made possible by the successful development of a nuclear propulsion plant by a group of scientists and engineers in the United States at the
Naval Reactors Branch of the
Bureau of Ships and the
Atomic Energy Commission. In July 1951, the
U.S. Congress authorized construction of the first nuclear-powered submarine,
Nautilus, under the leadership of
Captain Hyman G. Rickover, USN (sharing a name with
Captain Nemo's fictional submarine in
Jules Verne's 1870 novel
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, the first demonstrably practical submarine
Nautilus, and another that served with distinction in
World War II). The
Westinghouse Corporation was assigned to build its reactor. After the submarine was completed at the
Electric Boat Company, First Lady
Mamie Eisenhower broke the
traditional bottle of champagne on
Nautilus bow, and the submarine was
commissioned , on 30 September 1954. On 17 January 1955, she departed
Groton, Connecticut, to begin
sea trials. The submarine was long and cost about $55 million. Recognizing the utility of such vessels, the British
Admiralty formed plans to build nuclear-powered submarines. The
Soviet Union soon followed the United States in developing nuclear-powered submarines in the 1950s. Stimulated by the U.S. development of
Nautilus, Soviets began work on nuclear propulsion reactors in the early 1950s at the
Institute of Physics and Power Engineering, in
Obninsk, under Anatoliy P. Alexandrov, later to become head of the
Kurchatov Institute. In 1956, the first Soviet propulsion reactor designed by his team began operational testing. Meanwhile, a design team under Vladimir N. Peregudov worked on the vessel that would house the reactor. After overcoming many obstacles, including
steam generation problems,
radiation leaks, and other difficulties, the first nuclear submarine based on these combined efforts,
K-3 Leninskiy Komsomol of the Project 627
Kit class, called a by
NATO, entered service in the
Soviet Navy in 1958. The
United Kingdom's first nuclear-powered submarine was fitted with an American
S5W reactor, provided to Britain under the
1958 US-UK Mutual Defence Agreement. The hull and combat systems of
Dreadnought were of British design and construction, although the hull form and construction practices were influenced by access to American designs. Further technology transfers from the United States made Rolls-Royce entirely self-sufficient in reactor design in exchange for a "considerable amount" of information regarding submarine design and quietening techniques transferred from the United Kingdom to the United States. The rafting system for the
Valiant class provided the Royal Navy with an advantage in submarine silencing that the United States Navy did not introduce until considerably later. Nuclear power proved ideal for the propulsion of strategic
ballistic missile submarines (SSB), greatly improving their ability to remain submerged and undetected. The world's first operational nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) was with 16
Polaris A-1 missiles, which conducted the first SSBN deterrent patrol November 1960 – January 1961. The Soviets already had several SSBs of the
Project 629 (Golf class) and were only a year behind the US with their first SSBN,
ill-fated K-19 of
Project 658 (Hotel class), commissioned in November 1960. However, this class carried the same three-missile armament as the Golfs. The first Soviet SSBN with 16 missiles was the
Project 667A (Yankee class), the first of which entered service in 1967, by which time the US had commissioned 41 SSBNs, nicknamed the "
41 for Freedom". At the height of the
Cold War, approximately five to ten nuclear submarines were being commissioned yearly from the four Soviet submarine yards (
Sevmash in
Severodvinsk,
Admiralteyskiye Verfi in St. Petersburg,
Krasnoye Sormovo in
Nizhny Novgorod, and
Amurskiy Zavod in
Komsomolsk-on-Amur). From the late 1950s through the end of 1997, the Soviet Union, and later Russia, built a total of 245 nuclear submarines, more than all other nations combined. In the United Kingdom, all former and current nuclear submarines of the British
Royal Navy (with the exception of three: , and ) have been constructed in
Barrow-in-Furness (at
BAE Systems Submarine Solutions or its predecessor
VSEL) where construction of nuclear submarines continues.
Conqueror was the first nuclear-powered submarine to engage an enemy ship with torpedoes, sinking the cruiser with two
Mark 8 torpedoes during the 1982
Falklands War. , six countries deploy some form of nuclear-powered strategic submarines: the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, and India. Several other countries including Brazil, Australia and North Korea have ongoing projects in various phases to build nuclear-powered submarines. In the meantime, the
United States is developing
Columbia-class submarines. It is expected to have 16 missile tubes and to have its first patrol mission in 2031. Twelve submarines of this class, with a service life of ca. 42 years, are expected to be commissioned. ==Technology==