NS Savannah soon open to the public

The open house will be hosted by the NS Savannah Association, a nonprofit that works to promote and preserve the history of the ship. The event will feature presentations on the history and legacy of the ship in its Eisenhower Room at 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. (ET).

Attendees will be free to explore the ship’s midcentury modern interiors and containment vessel, which housed the ship’s reactor. Engine and control room tours will be offered.

Brief history: In 1954, after President Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” speech, the National Security Council launched deliberations on adding a nuclear-powered merchant ship to the nascent Atoms for Peace program.

A year and a half later, President Eisenhower announced the project publicly, and it received congressional authorization in 1956. Over the next six years, the 595-foot-long, 78-foot-wide Savannah was built at the New York Shipbuilding Corporation in Camden, N.J.

The NS Savannah entered service in May 1962 and was removed in July 1970. During its operational life, it used roughly 163 pounds of enriched uranium, which fueled its 69-MWt pressurized water reactor (later uprated to 80 MWt).

In the more than 450,000 nautical miles it crossed, the Savannah served as a floating ambassador for the safe and peaceful use of nuclear power. It was named after the revolutionary SS Savannah of 1819, the first steamship to make a transoceanic voyage.

Go deeper: To learn more about the legacy and history of the NS Savannah ahead of the event, read “NS Savannah and the American Nuclear Society.”