Step inside the world's only nuclear-powered passenger ship — built in 1959
The Nuclear Ship Savannah offers a snapshot of a nuclear future that never quite came to pass.
Deep inside the Port of Baltimore, past stacks of shipping containers and a plant that makes wallboard, sits the world's first, and only, nuclear-powered cruise ship – the NS Savannah.
The Savannah is the only nuclear-powered merchant ship the U.S. ever built, and the only nuclear vessel in the world designed with passengers in mind. As NPR's chief correspondent for all things atomic, I've wanted to see her for years.
So when the opportunity came up to take a tour recently, I climbed aboard.
Savannah's origin story began in the darkest days of
