WI: Rickover has a normal career

IOTL, Hyman Rickover managed to get parallel positions as head of Naval Reactors and on the AEC, carving himself out an empire that ruled - for better and worse - USN submarine development and operations for thirty years.

What if instead he is appointed elsewhere in 1952-1953, at the end of a normal tour of duty at the head of Naval Reactors, follows a normal naval career path, and retires in 1964?
 

Delta Force

Banned
I doubt it would change much for the path of civilian reactor technology. The decision to develop civilian nuclear power was made in 1954, and the first American reactors were going to be light water PWRs because they were the only suitable design at that time. There might be more room for BWRs and other technologies to gain ground though, since Rickover was a big PWR advocate.

Military submarines might be more developed too. Rickover was very conservative on all aspects of submarine design, and he used it to get a conservatively design for what would become the Los Angeles class. There were a variety of advanced proposals developed during the CONFORM studies, and some of them would have offered lower costs and/or greater performance.

Maybe there won't be as much nuclearization of the Navy though. By all accounts Rickover was very good at getting what he wanted. He met his match in President Carter, but Carter was one of the first members of Naval Reactors and had to pass a personal interview with Rickover to gain that commission.
 

Delta Force

Banned
I should point out that there were similar dual commissions for the Army and Air Force nuclear power programs too. If Rickover doesn't dominate things, perhaps there would be more funding for the competing military programs. The Army Nuclear Power Program had some very ambitious designs in the works for the 1960s.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Be interesting if there was less focus on attack boats

I doubt it would change much for the path of civilian reactor technology. The decision to develop civilian nuclear power was made in 1954, and the first American reactors were going to be light water PWRs because they were the only suitable design at that time. There might be more room for BWRs and other technologies to gain ground though, since Rickover was a big PWR advocate.

Military submarines might be more developed too. Rickover was very conservative on all aspects of submarine design, and he used it to get a conservatively design for what would become the Los Angeles class. There were a variety of advanced proposals developed during the CONFORM studies, and some of them would have offered lower costs and/or greater performance.

Maybe there won't be as much nuclearization of the Navy though. By all accounts Rickover was very good at getting what he wanted. He met his match in President Carter, but Carter was one of the first members of Naval Reactors and had to pass a personal interview with Rickover to gain that commission.

Be interesting if there was less focus on attack boats and more on strategic missile submarines earlier on; if someone like William Raborn (who, granted, was an aviator, not a submariner, but certainly got Polaris done quickly and efficiently) was put in charge of the nuclear submarine program in the early 1950s, its quite possible there could be some very significant ripples...

Best,
 
Don't think the Army helped themselves by pinning a guy to the ceiling with a control rod from SL-1. Only deaths in US from nuclear power.

For all of their supposed shortcomings, the 688 class did pretty well during the Cold War and after. The Seawolf class used quite a bit of automation in the torpedo room and HY100. They always seemed to have issues with the equipment.

Most of us Navy Nukes liked Admiral Rickover and the organization that he built. Don't get me wrong, he did some bat crap crazy stuff. And his fights with Navy brass is the stuff of legends. But we have operated nuclear reactors around the world since 1955 and never had an accident of any kind.
 
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