USS Virginia (CGN-38) was a nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser, the lead ship of her class, and the eighth ship of the United States Navy to be named for the Commonwealth of Virginia. She was commissioned in 1976 and decommissioned in 1994.
USS Virginia underway in 1983
Nuclear marine propulsion
Nuclear marine propulsion is propulsion of a ship or submarine with heat provided by a nuclear reactor. The power plant heats water to produce steam for a turbine used to turn the ship's propeller through a gearbox or through an electric generator and motor. Nuclear propulsion is used primarily within naval warships such as nuclear submarines and supercarriers. A small number of experimental civil nuclear ships have been built.
When the nuclear-powered Arktika class 50 Let Pobedy was put into service in 2007, it became the world's largest icebreaker.
A nuclear fuel element for the cargo ship NS Savannah. The element contains four bundles of 41 fuel rods. The uranium oxide is enriched to 4.2 and 4.6 percent U-235
In addition to nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, the United States once operated nuclear-powered cruisers.
The nuclear-propelled French submarine Saphir returning to Toulon, its home port, after Mission Héraclès
