Nuclear power really hit its stride in the 1950s. In the post-war period, there was a rush to develop peaceful uses for splitting the atom, beyond its application as a weapon of war. Soon enough, nuclear reactors were hooking up to power grids and helping propel ships and submarines around the globe.
Eventually, this led to an obvious idea—what if a ship with a reactor could serve as a floating nuclear power station? That question would be answered in the mid-1960s, with an American project of some strategic importance.
