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USS Ronald Reagan Commissioning Tomorrow
wessman writes "Being an employee at Northrop Grumman's Newport News shipyard, I cannot help but be proud to see one of our products commissioned by the U.S. Navy, especially considering how long it takes to build a $5 billion Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. And I'm sure the other 18,000 workers here feel the same way. The ship is being commissioned Saturday, July 12 at the Norfolk naval base. It is obviously the most technically advanced carrier in the fleet, taking the term "hardware" to new levels. Pick a local story. From the Hampton Roads Daily Press: Anchors Aweigh, Changes Abound Aboard Carrier, Some Wanted CVN-76 Named after Daredevil Flier, 20,000 Expected for Reagan's Rite, USS Constellation Retiring Too Soon?. From the Virginia Pilot: The Carrier Reagan - Ahead of Its Class, Carrier Construction is All in the Family, Former President's Son Michael Reagan Excited about Commissioning."
How come so many things are being named after this guy when he's not even dead yet? It used to be that you had to be dead to get public objects named after you. But for some odd reason, RWR is getting airports, federal buildings and warships named after him without the traditional respectful pause. This pause was there to prevent overly partisan hysteria from hijacking the public name space. And of course, Conservatives (who ought to know better) are the principal forces behind this flushing of tradition.
In Reagan's case, he is not really a factor, but his partisans (and detractors) are still pretty rabid. If he is really a great as his adherents say he is, why not wait a bit longer until a consensus emerges?
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
Directed energy weapons! what does that mean? High powered lasers? Something else that's super-secret?
after reading that I half-expected a description of how the next carriers will transform into a gi-normous humanoid robot.
Obviously nobody else read the article, or was too busy flaming the US for trying to impose a Pax Americana. The new series of ship (after this one) will have a separate reactor for powering electromagnetic catapults and directed energy weapons. Talk about the ultimate missle defense system:
Detect incoming missle with integrated helicopter radar
Point maser at incoming missle
Destroy incoming missle
Profit!
Piloting the planes off the deck via an electromagnetic catapule will give new meaning to the old Quake 2 'so-and-so rides so-and-so's rail'.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
The President carries a significant amount of weight with his party in Congress. So while he may not constitutionally be in charge of spending, he definitely influences it. A case in point is the economic policy of his administration. He convinced congress to increase spending and lower taxes.
While you could say that the men and women of congress are adults who are responsible for their own actions, you can't ignore that it was the President who goaded/inspired them to do it.
These changes did accelerate the endgame of the Cold War; but the seeds of the endgame were planted much earlier. After all, the coup attempt on Gorbachev was about Perestroika and its attendant lessening of power for many in the system. Gorbachev's autobiography (though self-serving at times) is a good reference here.
You could, of course, say that the form of the Soviet government was flawed to begin with and could never succeed in the long run. But as far as the problem of spending so much on the military to keep up with the U.S., that began as soon as the Cold War itself. It also spiked after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
A weird sort of irony is that Khruschev put missiles in Cuba thinking they would be an easy way to appease his hard-liners, allowing him to spend more money on domestic issues. After all, the Americans had missiles closer than those to the USSR. Even the U.S. military acknowledged that while they weren't insignificant, the missiles posed less of a threat to the U.S. than did submarines. Beschloss' "The Crisis Years" is a good reference here.
The tough break for Khruschev was that unlike Eisenhower, who carried enough of the people's trust that he didn't need to respond bellicosely every time the Soviets did something, Kennedy did. He even did it proactively, making a statement that the placement of any offensive nuclear weapons in the region would not be allowed. He then was stuck backing it up to keep his own people happy.
After Khruschev backed down, any thoughts of increasing domestic spending went out the door. Khruschev was pushed from power, and the direct seeds of the USSR's dissolution were planted with the increase in military spending that resulted from the "defeat" in Cuba.
You can imagine that Castro was pissed off; but if you want a good scary story, read about relations between the USSR and China at the time.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
I was in G3 and G4 on Enterprise, back in the late 80's. You'd be surprised what's moved by pulleys, steel cables, and compressed air on the same carrier with 4 to 8 nuclear reactors. Ships are a balance of high tech, and simple + reliable, like the sound powered phones. When jets got too heavy to take off of decks under their own power, the Navy started looking for ways to catapult them off. After examining various complicated mechanical measures, the Navy settled on a simple system where steam...that's right, hot water to steam, propels them off the deck.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
OK, I've read all the sarcastic/scathing/vitriolic typical /. comments here. Some people seem very caught up in their own self-importance, others just in ignorance. I'm sure this post will fall to the bottom of the heap. That's not really my concern.
Having spent four years aboard another carrier (USS Theodore Roosevelt CVN-71) and being a member of the commissioning crew, I thought I'd interject some of my own self-importance/ignorance here.
The ocean is wide. Ours is an island nation even though it doesn't appear to be. This fact has kept us insulated from two world wars and many other conflicts. Having borders that are largely water requires us to have a naval presence to protect/defend those borders.
Bullies. Whether any of us like it or not and whether it is logical or not, people use force to get what they want in this world. Unfortunately, it seems to be in our base nature. Logic, compassion, and reason don't have any bearing on it. The only way to prevent being overrun by bullies is to be strong yourself. Having 4.5 acres of sovereign US territory that you can move anywher on the ocean allows you to keep those bullies at bay. Whether the politicians are capapble of using that force in a way we all agree with is a matter of much disagreement. Being able to place a force in the vicinity of an ally quickly is also a tangible show of support in a tense situation.
Technology changes. The basic design for the Forrestal-class aircraft carrier was laid down in the mid 50's. Experience since then has shown that conventionally-powered aircraft carriers are hard-pressed to perform operations that are relatively simple for their nuclear-powered counterparts. There's simply not enough steam produced by the boilers to drive the ship and operate the catapults. In addition, fuel-storage requirements of the carrier mean that there is less fuel aboard for aircraft operations and to support other ships in the battle group. This makes the CVN not only more capable but more self-sufficient.
If you don't use it, you lose it. The skills necessary to produce a 100,000 ton 1100ft long, 300 ft wide, nuclear-powered aircraft carrier don't really transfer well to civil shipbuilding. Continuous building projects not only provide new, improved ships, but keep the skills necessary to produce them alive.
Salt water is a bitch. Rust starts the moment you lay down the keel to the day the last chunk of scrap goes off to make more razor blades. Naval hardware gets put to hard use through its lifetime.
Pride. An aircraft carrier is something to see. It's hard to believe that something that big can move at all. Even after having lived on one for four years, I'm still in awe.
Ok.. enough said. Getting down off soapbox.
"Well Ranger Brad, I'm a scientist. I don't believe in anything." - Dr. Roger Fleming