Fitting Way to Finish
Thunder and lightning heralded the Navy's unique NR-1 as she pulled into port at the New London, Connecticut, submarine base on 23 July. The occasion was the end of her final voyage capping a nearly 40-year service career. The tiny nuclear-powered submarine is the Navy's only deep-diving ocean engineering and research boat. Although her reactor core is good until 2012, the Navy has not budgeted for maintenance to run the sub to the end of the core's life, and there are no plans to replace her. The boat will be inactivated by the end of the year.
