Nuclear submarine nuclear-powered submarine was first proposed in the United States Navy by the Naval Research Laboratory's Ross Gunn in 1939. 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 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 names with Captain Nemo's fictional submarine in Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea",
Cultural influence of Jules Verne conversational character robot designed and built by him "Jules" in memory of Jules Verne. It is able to speak and respond in a human like manner, based on what it hears and has facial muscles that react to speech. Other scientific figures known to have been influenced by Verne include Fridtjof Nansen, Wernher von Braun, Guglielmo Marconi, and Yuri Gagarin. Arthur Rimbaud was inspired to write his well-known poem "Le Bateau ivre" after reading "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea", which he extensively alludes to within the poem; "The Adventures of Captain Hatteras" was likely an additional source of inspiration.