By Jonathan M. Pitts, Baltimore Sun, August 25, 2024 at 5:00 a.m.
You, too, might be able to own a 596-foot-long, nuclear-powered floating time capsule that has been visited by a million and a half people, features a ballroom, bar and swimming pool, and once was a star attraction on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight” show.
The Nuclear Ship (N.S.) Savannah — the first nuclear-powered ship ever built explicitly for peacetime purposes — has been moored in a quiet corner of the Canton Marine Terminal in Baltimore since 2008.
Constructed at the height of the Cold War as part of a government program aimed at demonstrating the nondestructive uses of nuclear power, the sleek 21,800-ton vessel achieved just that for nearly a decade, logging nearly half a million nautical miles and visiting 45 countries.
But the Savannah’s life in Baltimore could soon be coming to an end. The agency that owns and operates it — the U.S. Maritime Administration, or MARAD, a division of the federal transportation department — is nearing the end of the lengthy and complicated process of nuclear decommissioning, or removing enough vestiges of its nuclear capabilities to satisfy the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Erhard W. Koehler, senior technical advisor for the Savannah, says that doesn’t mean some otherwise bored billionaire can write a check and have it towed home for his or her own amusement.
But it does mean MARAD has made it known that it’s willing to donate the formerly nuclear-driven merchant ship to a science or history museum as a potential educational enterprise, to a state or municipality as a historic attraction, or to another entity for commercial or other use.
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