My father was a young engineer working in the early nuke sub program for Adm. Rickover. The old man scared the hell out of the first team to use a new batch of radaition dose meter badges that someone badgered Rickover in to using because the needed to be "safer then safe". When the badges were put on pierside, after a few minutes they all started to indicate "severe contamination" present. Everyone though the boat was leaking nuke juice. Instead, just to prove a point, Rickover had suggested to the person badgering him into using the more sensitive badges that they be set to 1/2 of what Rickover thought was safe. It turns out that this was sensitive enough to detect ambient radiation in the admosphere from the sun. Rickover let the panic set in, then calmly announced that this was just a demonstration. They then proceeded onto the boat and opened new badges. They stayed normal. He demonstrated that the world around us is dirtier than a u-boat.
You get to serve on a very nice piece of equipment. I salute you.
Did you see the pictures of the sub that hit bottom structure in Guam? Ouch! It had just come out of refit. Love the strength of HY-120. She sailed home.
tony
