WASHINGTON -- The first nuclear powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, whose log includes a voyage under the North Pole, will make its final mooring in Groton, Conn., the Senate decided Wednesday.
The Senate approved and sent to the White House a $1.93 million appropriation for permanently docking the Nautilus in the Connecticut port, rejecting the claims of the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., in favor of Groton where it was built.
The funds for the construction of a permanent site were included in a compromise military construction appropriations bill.
The Nautilus was steered practically single-handed through the reefs of Pentagon and congressional opposition by feisty Adm. Hyman Rickover.
Commissioned on Sept. 30, 1954, it put to sea in January, 1955, with its skipper writing a line in naval history: 'Under way on nuclear power.'
The proud record continued: the first submarine to reach the geographic North Pole; the first complete voyage under the Arctic ice cap, from the Bering Straits to the Greenland Sea; the first submarine able to maintain maximum submerged speed for more than hour and the first with unlimited submerged endurance.
In 1958 Nautilus set a submerged speed record by traveling from England to New York, 3,100 miles, in less than 6 ? days with an average speed of 20 knots.
With a third generation of nuclear subs, the Tridents, coming into service, Nautilus finally reached the end of its cruising days.
The Navy wanted to dock the historic vessel permanently in the Washington Navy Yard. But Navy Secretary Edward Hidalgo was overruled by the White House _ where the commanding officer, Jimmy Carter, worked under Rickover on the Nautilus program _ and Groton won the choice.
