Rickover: The Birth of Nuclear Power, a one-hour documentary about the pioneering Admiral Hyman Rickover and his development of the first nuclear submarine and civilian nuclear power plant will premiere on PBS in fall 2014. This colorful story, told for the first time by award-winning television producer Michael Pack, conveys to a new generation the important role Rickover played in history. The Public Media Lab is the recipient of a current $800,000 Sloan grant to produce and broadcast a one-hour PBS documentary on Admiral Rickover.

Admiral Hyman G. Rickover was a flamboyant maverick, a unique American hero. When few thought it possible, then-Captain Rickover harnessed the power of the atom to drive the first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, whose trip under the polar ice pack was one of the great adventure stories of the 1950s. Later, Rickover built the world’s first nuclear aircraft carrier and the first commercial nuclear power plant. Today, when questions about nuclear power have arisen again in the wake of the disaster in Japan, we would do well to consider the story of the man who started it all: Hyman G. Rickover.

For more information about the film, check out Manifold Productions.