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",
Jules Verne Denmark to return in haste to Paris, but missed the birth on 3 August 1861 of his only biological son, Michel. Meanwhile, Verne continued work on the idea of a "Roman de la Science", which he developed in a rough draft inspired, according to his recollections, by his "love for maps and the great explorers of the world". It took shape as a story of travel across Africa and would eventually become his first published novel, "Five Weeks in a Balloon". In 1862, through their mutual acquaintance Alfred de Bréhat, Verne came into contact with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel, and