

The Admiral of the Atom - calpaterson
http://www.city-journal.org/2015/bc0102rc.html

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dctoedt
I watched the show a couple of weeks ago; it was great. Between college and
law school I did my ROTC-scholarship payback time as a Navy nuclear officer.
To get into "The Program," I had to interview with Admiral Rickover. I can't
remember ever having been as furious as I was during our "conversation," which
of course was one of his interview techniques. Rickover was sometimes known as
the Kindly Old Gentleman; he was only two out of those four, but damn was he
effective. I'm more proud of having been a Navy nuke than of anything else
I've ever done professionally.

~~~
MichaelCrawford
I was offered the NROTC scholarship but turned it down because the Captain who
interviewed me had the idea that my interest in Physics would make me a good
nuclear submarine reactor operator.

Had he suggested I operated aircraft carrier reactors, I might have accepted
it. If I melted down the reactor at least there would be some possibility of
survival by swimming through the burning jet fuel.

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andrewl
I knew almost nothing about the man, but reading his Wikipedia page (and the
article linked above) make me want to know more. Here are some items I found
interesting:

In testimony to Congress on why naval nuclear propulsion had succeeded in
achieving a record of zero reactor-accidents as opposed to the one recent
accident at Three Mile Island:

"Over the years, many people have asked me how I run the Naval Reactors
Program, so that they might find some benefit for their own work. I am always
chagrined at the tendency of people to expect that I have a simple, easy
gimmick that makes my program function. Any successful program functions as an
integrated whole of many factors. Trying to select one aspect as the key one
will not work. Each element depends on all the others."

From testimony to Congress:

"I do not believe that nuclear power is worth it if it creates radiation. Then
you might ask me why do I have nuclear powered ships. That is a necessary
evil. I would sink them all. I am not proud of the part I played in it. I did
it because it was necessary for the safety of this country. That's why I am
such a great exponent of stopping this whole nonsense of war. Unfortunately
limits — attempts to limit war have always failed. The lesson of history is
when a war starts every nation will ultimately use whatever weapon it has
available." Further remarking: "Every time you produce radiation, you produce
something that has a certain half-life, in some cases for billions of years. I
think the human race is going to wreck itself, and it is important that we get
control of this horrible force and try to eliminate it." (Economics of Defense
Policy: Hearing before the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United
States, 97th Cong., 2nd sess., Pt. 1 (1982))

On education:

"I suggest that this is a good time to think soberly about our
responsibilities to our descendants - those who will ring out the Fossil Fuel
Age. Our greatest responsibility, as parents and as citizens, is to give
America's youngsters the best possible education. We need the best teachers
and enough of them to prepare our young people for a future immeasurably more
complex than the present, and calling for ever larger numbers of competent and
highly trained men and women."

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MichaelCrawford
My father was a Civil Service Electrical Engineer at Mare Island Naval
Shipyard in Vallejo. When he served in uniform, he was an antiaircraft missile
fire control officer.

He had a great deal of admiration for Admiral Rickover. It's a complete
surprise to me that Rickover is regarded as a jerk.

Liquid sodium-cooled reactors can be a lot more efficient than water-cooled
reactors because you can get the liquid sodium a lot hotter. The efficiency of
heat engines is determined largely by the difference between the hot part and
the cold part.

So a Congressional committee invited the Admiral in to explain why the Navy
didn't build submarines with sodium-cooled reactors. He responded by dropping
a piece of sodium into a glass of water.

(Sodium burns on contact with water.)

Despite being a government employee himself, my father hated government
employees with a furious passion.

~~~
dctoedt
> _Despite being a government employee himself, my father hated government
> employees with a furious passion._

We had a saying about civilian "managers" (what we'd now refer to as PHBs),
attributed to Rickover: _There but for the grace of God goes God._

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Animats
The video being reviewed is on Youtube.
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BE6ybK4Io4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BE6ybK4Io4))
Unfortunately, it's tagged as "for mature audiences", which means you have to
have a Google account. The DVD is rated TV-PG-L, so that's an error.

Rickover's history is well documented; there are at least three book-length
biographies of the man. The one by Polmar and Allen is probably the most
honest.

~~~
lmz
Next time you see something like that and don't want to log in just change
/watch?v= to /v/ e.g.
[https://www.youtube.com/v/2BE6ybK4Io4](https://www.youtube.com/v/2BE6ybK4Io4)

