NS Savannah

About the NS Savannah

Launched on July 21, 1959, NS Savannah was the world's first nuclear-powered merchant ship. Funded by US agencies under President Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" program, the $46.9 million demonstration project aimed to showcase peacetime nuclear energy. Named after the first transatlantic steamship, Savannah received the new prefix "NS" (Nuclear Ship). It operated from 1962 to 1972 as one of only four nuclear-powered cargo ships ever built, following the 1957 Soviet icebreaker Lenin, the first civilian nuclear vessel. Deactivated in 1971, Savannah underwent several moves before being permanently moored at Pier 13 of the Canton Marine Terminal in Baltimore, Maryland, in 2008.