More Miles to the Gallon.

A nuclear-powered navy vessel can go a long way between stops for fuel. That is why Adm. Hyman Rickover pushed so hard to develop the nuclear navy and why the country was willing to pay so much to get it.

The USS Washington.

The nuclear-powered submarine USS Washington was built by the General Dynamics Corporation's Electric Boat Division in Groton, Connecticut, and launched from the Charleston, South Carolina, shipyard in the fall of 1960. The Washington had a missile compartment containing sixteen seven-foot tubes in a 100-foot area, each holding a Polaris missile, and could stay submerged sixty days at a time. It could go three years without stopping to refuel. The sub had two crews (the "blue" and the "gold"), each consisting of ten officers and ninety enlisted men. Each crew spent sixty days on patrol. The...