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How ORSE tests a department

For a Navy reactor department, the annual visit by the Operational Reactor Safeguards Examination, or ORSE, team involves days of intense scrutiny by up to eight nuclear-qualified officers.

According to a retired nuclear-qualified officer with extensive knowledge of team procedures, the visit lasts up to three days and leaves no aspect of the department untested.

“[The team is] looking for standards on the ship, if the crew is generally squared away and people are upbeat in their attitudes, if people’s eyes dart around [when you ask a question], if there’s friction, if they’re uncooperative or sarcastic,” he said.

The ORSE team starts with an administrative inspection of all logs and records, then moves on to instruments, controls and reactor chemistry. The plant is inspected for material readiness, cleanliness, preservation and proper stowage. The team then puts the department through drills and picks sailors at random to observe during different evolutions.

“All during this time, the crew is taking the written exams,” typically when they come off watch, the retired officer said.

Finally, the crew must endure often withering face-to-face tests known as the “level-of-knowledge” interviews, usually two sailors at a time.

It is all undertaken with the utmost seriousness because, as a former nuclear carrier command master chief put it, “When you run a reactor, there is no second chance. You have to do it right every day.”