Post by Sailor on Oct 22, 2012 13:49:31 GMT -8
A group of Navy veterans want to preserve the USS Enterprise's history, but it appears they'll be doing it without the ship itself.
The veterans learned in March that making a museum out of the aircraft carrier, the largest in the U.S. fleet and the first to be powered by nuclear reactors, isn't an option. More recently they they learned that a more modest effort to preserve the ship's island, also wouldn't fly.
And for the 10 Nimitz-class carriers in the 11-ship U.S. fleet, a future as a museum seems unlikely.
"Inactivation of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers requires removing large sections of ship structure to facilitate reactor compartment removal and disposal," Rear Adm. Thomas Moore, the Navy's program executive officer for carriers, said in a statement emailed to the Daily Press.
Converting any one of the carriers, all built in Newport News, Moore wrote, would likely "cost tens of millions of dollars."
The Navy already ruled out making a museum out of the Enterprise.
More here:
www.military.com/daily-news/2012/10/22/enterprise-nimitz-class-carriers-wont-be-museums.html?ESRC=eb.nl
Pretty much what I figured for the "Big E," the Navy has to tear her apart to remove the 8 reactors and related systems, most of which are radioactive after more than 50 years service.
After the reactors are gone her hull will probably sit there rusting in Bremerton until her background radiation level drops to EPA "acceptable" levels. Amazingly the hull of Long Beach (CGN 9) is still laying there, welded to a pier more than 20 years following her decommissioning and "defueling." No superstructure or any other structure above the main deck remains, only the outline and size of her "Baltimore" like cruiser hull remains to tell us what ship she is. And of course, no nuclear reactors. You can still see her on Google Earth, laying at a pier near CV-63 and CV-64 (Kitty Hawk and Constellation.)
The veterans learned in March that making a museum out of the aircraft carrier, the largest in the U.S. fleet and the first to be powered by nuclear reactors, isn't an option. More recently they they learned that a more modest effort to preserve the ship's island, also wouldn't fly.
And for the 10 Nimitz-class carriers in the 11-ship U.S. fleet, a future as a museum seems unlikely.
"Inactivation of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers requires removing large sections of ship structure to facilitate reactor compartment removal and disposal," Rear Adm. Thomas Moore, the Navy's program executive officer for carriers, said in a statement emailed to the Daily Press.
Converting any one of the carriers, all built in Newport News, Moore wrote, would likely "cost tens of millions of dollars."
The Navy already ruled out making a museum out of the Enterprise.
More here:
www.military.com/daily-news/2012/10/22/enterprise-nimitz-class-carriers-wont-be-museums.html?ESRC=eb.nl
Pretty much what I figured for the "Big E," the Navy has to tear her apart to remove the 8 reactors and related systems, most of which are radioactive after more than 50 years service.
After the reactors are gone her hull will probably sit there rusting in Bremerton until her background radiation level drops to EPA "acceptable" levels. Amazingly the hull of Long Beach (CGN 9) is still laying there, welded to a pier more than 20 years following her decommissioning and "defueling." No superstructure or any other structure above the main deck remains, only the outline and size of her "Baltimore" like cruiser hull remains to tell us what ship she is. And of course, no nuclear reactors. You can still see her on Google Earth, laying at a pier near CV-63 and CV-64 (Kitty Hawk and Constellation.)
