A Look Inside America’s Aging Nuclear Missile Submarines

The nuclear missile submarine USS Tennessee (SSBN-734)

Breaking Defense: Inside America’s Aging Nuclear Missile Submarines

America's nuclear deterrent is aging, with a half-dozen replacement programs on the horizon. But the young men and women who serve, Gen. John Hyten said, are better than ever: “They love this country. They want to defend this country. They go to work every day. They’re amazing — they’re smarter than we were, by far. They get motivated differently so you have to lead them differently, but their passion is just the same.”

KING’S BAY, GEORGIA: Imagine drifting off to sleep underwater in a tiny room with eight other people, with nuclear missile tubes on either side.

Need a drink now? Too bad, because, while in theory the skipper can authorize alcohol, in practice he never will. You can eat canned asparagus every day though, if you want, thanks to a quirk in Navy nutrition regulations. (It’s unclear how much of it ends up compacted into cubes with the other garbage, weighted down, and dumped to the ocean floor). Oh, and as another health benefit, even though you live next to a mobile nuclear reactor, you get less radiation than the average American simply because you spend months at a time without seeing the sun.

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WNU Editor: These subs are getting old. The Columbia class will replace these subs at a cost of $128 billion (give or take).