thumb|upright|Funnel of Otto Hahn preserved at the [[German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven]]

Otto Hahn was one of only four nuclear-powered cargo vessels built to date. Planning of a German-built trade and research vessel to test the feasibility of nuclear power in civil service began in 1960 under the supervision of German physicist Erich Bagge. Launched in 1964, her nuclear reactor was deactivated 15 years later in 1979 and replaced by a conventional diesel engine room. The ship was scrapped in 2009.

History

Otto Hahns keel was laid down in 1963 by Howaldtswerke Deutsche Werft of Kiel. She was launched in 1964 and named in honour of Professor Otto Hahn, the German chemist and Nobel Prize-winner, who discovered the nuclear fission of uranium in 1938. The first captain of the Otto Hahn was Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock, a German U-boat ace of World War II.

In 1968, the ship's 38-megawatt nuclear reactor was taken critical and sea trials began. In October of that year, NS Otto Hahn was certified for commercial freight transport and research.

Configured to carry passengers and ore, Otto Hahn made her first port call in Safi, Morocco, loading a cargo of phosphate ores, in 1970. In 1972, after four years of operation, her reactor was refuelled. She had covered 250,000 nautical miles (463,000 km) on 1.7 metric tons of low enriched uranium at 3.5 percent U, similar to the fuel used in land-based nuclear power plants.

In 1979 Otto Hahn was deactivated. Her nuclear reactor and propulsion plant were removed and replaced by a conventional diesel engine room.

In 1983, Otto Hahn was recommissioned as the container ship Trophy and leased into commercial service. On 19 November, she was renamed Norasia Susan. She became the Norasia Helga in 1985, Hua Kang He in 1989, Anais in 1998, Tal in 1999, and finally Madre later that year. Her last owner, from 2006, was Liberian-based Domine Maritime Corporation, under the management of Alon Maritime Corporation of Athens, Greece. It was scrapped in Bangladesh in 2009.

thumb|upright|Shield of the Otto Hahn

See also

  • List of civilian nuclear ships
  • Nuclear marine propulsion
  • Der Abschied

Further reading

  • Hajo Neumann: Vom Forschungsreaktor zum 'Atomschiff' OTTO HAHN: Die Entwicklung von Kernenergieantrieben für die Handelsmarine in Deutschland. Hauschild Verlag, Bremen 2009,
  • Luciene Fernandes Justo/Gildo Magalhães dos Santos: The Otto Hahn Nuclear Ship and the German-Brazilian Deals on Nuclear Energy. A Case Study in Big Science, in: Icon 6 (2000), pp. 21–49.

References

  • German Maritime Museum