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An Annapolis graduate, Commander E. E. Kintner was project officer for the STR Project, responsible directly to Admiral Rickover for the two crucial years which he has described in his article. Since 1955 Commander Kintner has been nuclear power superintendent at Mare Island Naval Shipyard in California, which recently delivered the first nuclear submarine to be built on the West Coast.
The highly dramatic and historic news that the submarine Nautilus had completed a passage under the roof of the world from the Pacific to the Atlantic excited the imagination of men everywhere. An equally dramatic and historic event, which proved that the Nautilus voyage could eventually be made, occurred five years earlier.
The Submarine Thermal Reactor plant (STR Mark I), the test version of the Nautilus machinery, commenced operating on May 31, 1953, in the desert of the Snake River plain, fifty-five miles west of Idaho Falls, Idaho. Its successful operation on that date, the first generation of any significant quantity of controlled atomic power, was the culmination of one of the largest, most daring, and most aggressive scientific ventures in history. No less than the polar voyage of the Nautilus, the design and operation of its prototype machinery required facing the hitherto unknown with physical courage, technical skill, and forceful and energetic leadership.
