History of submarines few years before the US, and paralleled subsequent US development in this area. In the 1950s, nuclear power partially replaced diesel-electric propulsion. The sailing of the first nuclear-powered submarine, the USN ""Nautilus"" in 1955 was soon followed by similar British, French and Russian boats. Equipment was also developed to extract oxygen from sea water. These two innovations, together with inertial navigation systems, gave submarines the ability to remain submerged for weeks or months, and enabled previously impossible voyages such as the crossing of the North Pole beneath the Arctic ice cap by the USS "Nautilus" in 1958. Most of the
Skate-class submarine Skate-class submarine The "Skate"-class submarines were the United States Navy's first production run of nuclear-powered submarines. They were an evolution of the in everything except their propulsion plants, which were based on the operational prototype . The four "Skate" class boats re-introduced stern torpedo tubes. Although among the smallest nuclear-powered attack submarines ever built, the "Skate" class served for many years, with the last being decommissioned in 1989. USS "Skate" was the first submarine to surface at the North Pole, on 17 March 1959. "Skate" and "Sargo" were built with the S3W reactor, "Swordfish" and "Seadragon" also had the S3W