<P> Nautilus was decommissioned in 1980 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1982 . The submarine has been preserved as a museum ship at the Submarine Force Library and Museum in Groton, Connecticut, where the vessel receives around 250,000 visitors per year . </P> <P> In July 1951 the United States Congress authorized the construction of a nuclear - powered submarine for the U.S. Navy, which was planned and personally supervised by Captain (later Admiral) Hyman G. Rickover, USN, known as the "Father of the Nuclear Navy ." On 12 December 1951 the US Department of the Navy announced that the submarine would be called Nautilus, the fourth U.S. Navy vessel officially so named . The boat carried the hull number SSN - 571 . The Nautilus benefited from the GUPPY improvements to the American Gato -, Balao -, and Tench - class submarines . </P> <P> Nautilus's keel was laid at General Dynamics' Electric Boat Division in Groton, Connecticut by Harry S. Truman on 14 June 1952 . She was christened on 21 January 1954 and launched into the Thames River, sponsored by Mamie Eisenhower . Nautilus was commissioned on 30 September 1954, under the command of Commander Eugene P. Wilkinson, USN . </P> <P> Nautilus was powered by the Submarine Thermal Reactor (STR), later redesignated the S2W reactor, a pressurized water reactor produced for the US Navy by Westinghouse Electric Corporation . Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory, operated by Westinghouse, developed the basic reactor plant design used in Nautilus after being given the assignment on 31 December 1947 to design a nuclear power plant for a submarine . Nuclear power had the crucial advantage in submarine propulsion because it is a zero - emission process that consumes no air . This design is the basis for nearly all of the US nuclear - powered submarine and surface combat ships, and was adapted by other countries for naval nuclear propulsion . The first actual prototype (for Nautilus) was constructed and tested by the Argonne National Laboratory in 1953 at the S1W facility, part of the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho . </P>

Where was the world's first nuclear powered submarine built