Museum
Nautilus was designated a National Historic Landmark by the United States Secretary of the Interior on 20 May 1982.
She was named as the official state ship of Connecticut in 1983. Following an extensive conversion at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Nautilus was towed back to Groton, Connecticut arriving on 6 July 1985. On 11 April 1986, Nautilus opened to the public as part of the Submarine Force Library and Museum.
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 ($6.07 million in present-day terms). Nautilus attracts some 250,000 visitors annually to her present berth near Naval Submarine Base New London.
Nautilus celebrated the 50th anniversary of her commissioning on 30 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.
Visitors may tour the forward two compartments, with guidance from an automated system. Despite similar alterations to exhibit the engineering spaces, tours aft of the control room are not permitted due to safety and security concerns.
Nautilus is the subject of an episode of the syndicated television anthology series, The Silent Service, which aired during the 1957–1958 season.
Read more about this topic: USS Nautilus (SSN-571)
Famous quotes containing the word museum:
“Always clung to by barnacles.”
—Hawaiian saying no. 2661, ‘lelo No’Eau, collected, translated, and annotated by Mary Kawena Pukui, Bishop Museum Press, Hawaii (1983)
“[A] Dada exhibition. Another one! What’s the matter with everyone wanting to make a museum piece out of Dada? Dada was a bomb ... can you imagine anyone, around half a century after a bomb explodes, wanting to collect the pieces, sticking it together and displaying it?”
—Max Ernst (1891–1976)
“When I go into a museum and see the mummies wrapped in their linen bandages, I see that the lives of men began to need reform as long ago as when they walked the earth. I come out into the streets, and meet men who declare that the time is near at hand for the redemption of the race. But as men lived in Thebes, so do they live in Dunstable today.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)