6 ms·

The NS Savannah was previously at Patriot's Point in Charleston SC, and I got to go through her. She hadn't been de-fueled so you couldn't go through the react

by chiph 12y ago

The NS Savannah was previously at Patriot's Point in Charleston SC, and I got to go through her. She hadn't been de-fueled so you couldn't go through the reactor spaces, but there was a window that you could look through and see it (Oooo! Atoms!) The polarized windows are interesting -- you rotate the inner half until at 90° they are dim. But it never got dim enough where you could sleep during the day in a cabin. It is a beautiful ship, and it's obvious from looking at it vs. a modern container ship why it wasn't a commercial success. But as a technology demonstrator, I think it was mostly successful.

pnut 12y ago
In the late 80's, I snuck past the barricades and explored the engine room for over an hour. It was part of a boy scout excursion that had us camping on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown, so we had after-hours access to the facilities. The catwalks were partially intact and it was a very dangerous, decayed industrial environment. Lots of negative space indicated that some large components had been removed.
vibrolax 12y ago
The reactor was actually de-fueled long before that in 1975, but the reactor vessel has still not been removed and the associated parts await eventuall decontamination and decommissioning. As a 6 year old child of the Atomic Age, my parents took me to tour the Savannah at her Port Everglades (Ft. Lauderdale FL) stop in 1964. The view through a window at the nearly featureless grey reactor vessel was anticlimactic. The most memorable sight for me was the stainless steel bar/lounge for the passengers. It looked like it had never been used. When I was about 10 years old I built a plastic styrene model, which included a detailed reactor that I carefully painted in he assigned colors colors. All this detail disappeared forever into the grey containment vessel.

by chiph 12y ago

pnut 12y ago

In the late 80's, I snuck past the barricades and explored the engine room for over an hour. It was part of a boy scout excursion that had us camping on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown, so we had after-hours access to the facilities. The catwalks were partially intact and it was a very dangerous, decayed industrial environment. Lots of negative space indicated that some large components had been removed.

vibrolax 12y ago

The reactor was actually de-fueled long before that in 1975, but the reactor vessel has still not been removed and the associated parts await eventuall decontamination and decommissioning. As a 6 year old child of the Atomic Age, my parents took me to tour the Savannah at her Port Everglades (Ft. Lauderdale FL) stop in 1964. The view through a window at the nearly featureless grey reactor vessel was anticlimactic. The most memorable sight for me was the stainless steel bar/lounge for the passengers. It looked like it had never been used. When I was about 10 years old I built a plastic styrene model, which included a detailed reactor that I carefully painted in he assigned colors colors. All this detail disappeared forever into the grey containment vessel.