USS Nautilus (SSN-571) was the world's first operational nuclear-powered submarine and the first vessel to complete a submerged transit across the North Pole. In July 1951 the US Congress authorised the construction of the first nuclear-powered submarine for the U.S. Navy, which was planned and personally supervised by Admiral Hyman G. Rickover. The sixth US Navy vessel so named - she carried the hull number SSN-571.

Nautilus's keel was laid at General Dynamics' Electric Boat Division in Groton, Connecticut by US President Harry S. Truman, on 14th June 1952. Nautilus was commissioned on 30th September 1954, under the command of Commander Eugene P. Wilkinson, USN. Nautilus was powered by the S2W naval reactor, a pressurized water reactor produced for the US navy by Westinghouse Electric.

Following her commissioning in January 1955 she put to sea for the first time and signaled her historic message: "Underway on nuclear power." Submerged throughout, she traveled 2,100 km (1,100 nautical miles) from New London to San Juan, Puerto Rico and covered 2,223 km (1,200 nmi) in less than ninety hours. At the time this was the longest submerged cruise by a submarine and at the highest sustained speed (for at least one hour) ever recorded.

From 1955 to 1957, Nautilus continued to be used to investigate the effects of increased submerged speeds and endurance. The improvements rendered the progress made in anti-submarine warfare during the Second World War virtually obsolete. Radar and anti-submarine aircraft, which had proved crucial in defeating submarines during the War, proved ineffective against a vessel able to move out of an area in record time, change depth quickly and stay submerged for very long periods.

In February 1957, Nautilus logged her 60,000th nautical mile (111,120 km), matching the endurance of the fictional Nautilus described in Jules Verne's novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea. In May, she departed for the Pacific Coast to participate in coastal exercises and the fleet exercise, operation "Home Run," which acquainted units of the Pacific Fleet with the capabilities of nuclear submarines.

On 25th April 1958 she began her history-making polar transit, operation "Sunshine". She submerged in the Barrow Sea Valley on 1st August and on 3rd August she became the first ship to reach the geographic North Pole. From the North Pole, she continued on and after 96 hours and 2,945 km (1,590 nmi) under the ice, she surfaced northeast of Greenland, having completed the first successful submerged voyage across the North Pole. The technical details of this mission were planned by scientists from the Naval Electronics Laboratory including Dr Waldo Lyon who accompanied Nautilus as chief scientist and ice pilot.

Following fleet exercises in early 1959, Nautilus entered the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, for her first complete overhaul (28th May 1959-15th August 1960). Nautilus operated in the Atlantic, conducting evaluation tests for ASW improvements, participating in NATO exercises and, during the autumn of 1962, in the naval quarantine of Cuba, until she headed east again for a two month Mediterranean tour in August 1963. On her return she joined in fleet exercises until entering the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard for her second overhaul 17 January 1964.

In the spring of 1979, Nautilus set out from Groton, Connecticut on her final voyage. She was decommissioned and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 3rd March 1980. Nautilus now serves as a museum of submarine history, after undergoing a five-month preservation in 2002, at the Electric Boat division of General Dynamics, at a cost of approximately $4.7 million. The historic ship Nautilus attracts some 250,000 visitors annually to her present berth near the Naval Submarine Base New London, at the U.S. Navy U.S. Navy Submarine Force Museum and Library in Groton.
Nautilus celebrated the 50th anniversary of her commissioning on 30th September 2004 with a ceremony that included a speech from Vice Admiral Eugene P Wilkinson, the first Commanding Officer of Nautilus, and a designation of the ship as an American Nuclear Society National Nuclear Landmark.