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",
Nautilus (Verne) for ramming and destroying ships which are the targets of his piracy. The same book also features HMS "Sword", a small Royal Navy experimental submarine which is sunk after a valiant but unequal struggle with the pirate submarine. In the book "The Master of the World", Robur's secondary vehicle, "Terror", is a strange flying machine with submarine, automobile and speedboat capabilities. It briefly eludes naval forces on the Great Lakes by diving. Jules Verne's text in "20,000 Leagues under the Sea" provides a great deal of information about "Nautilus" as discussed on this page: Jules Verne's "Nautilus". Many artists and