The SS United States’ is historically significant as a remarkable example of innovation and engineering. At 990 ft. long, the SS United States is over 100 ft. longer than the Titanic. If you stood the SS United States on one end, she’d be the 16th tallest building in New York City. Today, the SS United States remains the largest passenger ship ever built in America.

The SS United States, as part of a top secret Cold War program was designed to break all speed records. On her maiden voyage, she made the transatlantic run in just THREE and a half days. Considering her size, imagine the Chrysler Building barreling through the ocean at over 40 miles per hour! To this day, she still holds the trans-Atlantic speed record — no other passenger ship has crossed the Atlantic faster in both directions.

Many lessons learned in Titanic’s sinking influenced the design of the SS United States. Both ships had double bottoms, but the United States’ extended up along the sides of her hull so that an incident like Titanic’s iceberg collision would only cause minimal damage. The SS United States had watertight compartments that extended an unprecedented 40 feet above the waterline, and she had 20 compartments as opposed to Titanic’s 16. The SS United States even had a “redundant” engine room, so that if one of her engine rooms flooded, the other could still operate and generate electricity for the ship. If the SS United States had ever suffered comparable catastrophic damage to the Titanic, the ship would not have broken apart because her superstructure was made of aluminum — much more flexible than steel and not requiring any expansion joints. Many ships of Titanic’s era were also destroyed by fire, rather than collision damage. Taking this into account, the SS United States was built almost completely fireproof. Utilizing many new materials invented for use in World War II, it was said that the only wood aboard the SS United States were the “pianos and the butcher’s blocks.” William Francis Gibbs, the vessel’s designer, only allowed mahogany pianos on board after Theodore Steinway succeeded in demonstrating his pianos’ fire-resistant qualities by dousing one of them in gasoline and setting it alight.