Word: subs
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...last week, Captain Rickover's task was a lot nearer completion than either the Navy or the tight-lipped Atomic Energy Commission would admit officially. The Pentagon released a curt, one-sentence statement saying that it had awarded a contract for an atomic sub to the Electric Boat Co. of Groton, Conn. "From now on," said an AEC director, "you can gauge our progress by the increase in vagueness of our reports...
Armed with a top priority, Rickover gathered a staff of bright young officers with a mathematical bent, went with them to the AEC's giant Oak Ridge plant for an atomic refresher course. His engineers and sub men pored over old Annapolis manuals and textbooks on steam turbines, rigged one up, and started figuring ways to hitch it to an atomic boiler. In Washington, the Bureau of Ships began designing a thick new hull to hold the new engine...
Word of Captain Rickover's project started buzzing discreetly through the fleet. Here & there, carefully screened sub officers were called to Washington for an interview with Rickover. A hand-picked few were sent up to Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a three-year course in subjects relevant to atomic engines...
Groton, the Electric Boat Co. sealed off a special section of their yard and nicknamed it "Siberia." There, in guarded isolation, the Navy's shipbuilders and scientists started putting together a wooden mock-up of the atomic sub...
Shark's Fins & Joysticks. In appearance, the Navy's first SSN (Submarine Nuclear) will look much like an ordinary Tang-class sub (TIME, July 9), only bigger and chubbier. It will have the same streamlined gun-free deck, the same sharklike fin rising in the center to house its radar, periscope and snorkel (which is a convenience, not a necessity, on an atomic submarine). Inside, the SSN will open up an entirely new world to sailormen accustomed to the smelly, cramped interiors of standard subs. It will have its own oxygen supply and a special carbon dioxide removing...