2026 - NR-HA Focus Paper on CVN-65 Early History

This 2026 NR-HA focus paper on the early history of Enterprise, the first nuclear powered aircraft carrier. The paper examines how USS Enterprise emerged as the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, tracing its origins from the cancelled early-1950s CVR carrier-reactor project through the later A1W/A2W development program that made the ship possible. It explains how the cancelled CVR effort was redirected into Shippingport, how Naval Reactors used the A1W prototype in Idaho to reduce technical risk, and how the final Enterprise design reflected the limits and ambitions of first-generation carrier reactor technology. The paper also addresses Newport News construction, cost and schedule pressures, the steam-catapult controversy, prototype testing, early sea trials, and the role of Rickover’s congressional testimony in defending nuclear carriers against budgetary and institutional opposition. Overall, it argues that Enterprise was both a major engineering achievement and a political proof case: a ship that demonstrated the operational value of nuclear propulsion while exposing the cost, integration, and organizational challenges of bringing nuclear power into the surface fleet.