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USS Enterprise Takes Its Final Voyage

Posted by Soulskill on from the looking-for-nuclear-wessels dept.

westlake writes "The AP is reporting that the world's first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, U.S.S. Enterprise, is to be retired after fifty years of active service — the longest of any warship in U.S. naval history. Its final deployment will take it to the Middle East and last for seven months. The big ship has become notoriously difficult to keep in repair. As an old ship and the only one in its class, breakdowns have become frequent and replacement parts often have to be custom made. Despite its place in naval history and popular culture, Enterprise will meet its end at the scrap yard rather than being preserved at a museum. This is expected to happen in 2015, after the nuclear fuel has been removed."

19 of 455 comments (clear)

  1. That's odd by koan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Final voyage to the Middle East for an old hard to maintain ship, one wonders if something will befall the ship while there since it is apparently "expendable".

    --
    "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
    1. Re:That's odd by couchslug · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "It's a pathological desire to undermine anything that is believed by anyone. It's not healthy distrust, it's a creepy, nonsensical obsession with being the one, unique snowflake who sees things how they "really are"."

      This also explains religion, where one is exalted by special insight.
      Of course both are absurd, with WTC conspiracy theories being far more plausible than Sky Fairies.

      --
      "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
    2. Re:That's odd by Y-Crate · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "Nano-thermites"?

      "Little passenger plane"?

      You're talking nonsense. It's not even an argument against what I said, it's merely words that have no real connection with reality being written down for the sake of opposing what I said.

      Which is at the core of the 9/11 Truther M.O.

    3. Re:That's odd by DesScorp · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If the entire crew is wearing red shirts, I'd worry.

      I was in the ordinance section ("G" section) on Big E. Aviation ops staff... ordinance, flight deck ops, fuel, safety, etc... all wear color coded shirts. The fuel guys wear purple shirts. Safety guys white, flight deck guys blue, plane captains brown, etc. Ordinance wore red shirts. So yeah, I was a redshirt on the Enterprise, and lived to tell about it :P

      --
      Life is hard, and the world is cruel
    4. Re:That's odd by tragedy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      On the one hand, I know that there are plenty of evil conspiracies that governments engage in to further their goals. The Nazi's burned the Reichstag to gain popular support. Some factions in the CIA conspired to fake and/or actually commit terrorist attacks on US citizens and blame them on Cuba to start a war with Cuba (the Northwoods documents are real, but they were never green lighted by the President, but the CIA agents behind it still planned it and sought approval to do it and even specifically talked about manufacturing another "remember the Maine" incident). The FBI under Hoover pulled off a huge list of dirty tricks including COINTELPRO... Governements, including the US government, pull off all kinds of dirty tricks. It frankly wouldn't surprise me if there's a few proposals floating around for all kinds of false flag operations they can pull off to justify a war with Iran (it wouldn't even surprise me if sinking a ship such as the Enterprise were in one of those proposals).

      Conspiracies are real things. They happen in real life. The events of 9/11, for example, are proven to be a conspiracy... by a group of mostly Saudi terrorists. Whether there was actually any US government participation in it is another story. I think it's quite likely that there was some, but probably not in the grandiose secret hidden demolition charges way most of the conspiracy theorists seem to think. Just like the first World Trade Center Bombing, various intelligence and law enforcement agencies seem to have had their eye on the people who did it, but still let them go about their business and possibly even provided some material support here and there. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies do this a lot. They monitor and sometimes infiltrate criminal and terrorist organizations and cultivate "informants" and double-agents. They let small crimes (and sometimes big ones) get by in order to build up for really big takedowns. Consider FBI informants "Whitey" Bulger and Stephen "the rifleman" Flemmi who were getting away with murder and eliminating the competition with FBI protection. Let's face it, sometimes they commit out and out entrapment and manufacture crimes. Some may argue that the ends justify the means and maybe they're right, but they seem pretty hard to justify to me. So, maybe some in the US government actually did give the 9/11 terrorists a pass, or even provide them assistance just to see what they would do or to give them a chance to commit a terrorist act (which they could swoop in and heroically prevent). I'll even concede that I wouldn't put it past some of the kinds of people in these positions to allow a terrorist attack to occur just to have an excuse for a war. That, sadly, does not stretch credibility to the breaking point.

      Having said all that, most of the conspiracy theories around this stuff are nuts. For example, your nano thermite paint idea. Why, exactly would that be necessary? How would it even be practical since a layer of thermite paint couldn't produce enough heat to do much more than slightly warm the very thick steel we're talking about? Why would it even be necessary given the damage from the collision and the furnace from the burning jet fuel (and everything else flammable in the building)? Has anyone claiming it's what happened bothered doing any research or experimentation? Most of the really vocal conspiracy theorists seem to be really bad at the physics of the real world and to be terrible at logic. Like the ones who insist that the Pentagon was hit by a missile because the hole in the wall wasn't the same size and shape as the front profile of the plane that hit it and don't understand that: A. a jet plane is a flying, hollow, aluminium can and the Pentagon is a re-enforced concrete fortress and B. it would require the people behind the conspiracy to simultaneously be brilliant enough to pull off the elaborate conspiracy, but stupid enough to use a real plane in three other places, but use a missile in a fourth.

      Then there's the moon hoax conspiracy idiots who consiste

    5. Re:That's odd by GameboyRMH · · Score: 3, Interesting

      A building pre-rigged with explosives would be a deathtrap in a fire, and the explosives have a limited shelf life anyways. Also the holes where demolition charges are planted structurally weaken the building. There's a reason why access to demolition-prepped buildings is carefully controlled.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  2. Not to take anything away from the Big E... by daveschroeder · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...but the USS Constitution is the "world's oldest commissioned warship afloat", having been launched 21 October 1797.

    As for the USS Enterprise (CVN 65), some video memories:

    USS Enterprise at Sea
    USS Enterprise Flight Operations

    "Fate protects fools, little children, and ships named Enterprise."

    Fair winds and following seas.

    1. Re:Not to take anything away from the Big E... by westlake · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The constitution was in active service for longer than the Enterprise, but it's no longer in active service. It's been a museum for 100 years.

      How much of the an original wooden vessel survives after ten years, thirty years, 100 years is a very interesting question. In the end, you are always looking at a restoration or re-construction.

      Wood rots. Hemp rots. Canvas rots.

      Rumors had circulated for half a century that the Constellation was not what its promoters claimed it to be, and [Dana] Wegner's report confirmed them. Investigators from the Navy discovered that the supposed Revolutionary War-era frigate in Baltimore Harbor was actually a Civil War era sloop that had been built in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1854. All it shared with the frigate built in Baltimore in the eighteenth century was its name. It resembled a Revolutionary War-era frigate because during early renovations, some of the ship's admirers had "restored" the Constellation to appear to be almost 60 years older than it was; for example, they added a second gun deck and made other alterations. For most of its tenure in Baltimore, the Constellation was living a lie.
      [This] distortion of history came at the expense of the Constellation's own very interesting history. It was, for example, the last and largest all sail-powered sloop commissioned by the U.S. Navy, and while it did not engage in a famous sea battle, as did its predecessor, it did work to interdict the slave trade during the mid-1800s.

      Archival Authenticity in a Digital Age

  3. Gulf to Gulf by some+old+guy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The "Big E"'s first combat deployment was in the Gulf of Tonkin, on Yankee Station. As a veteran of TF77 (The Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club) I find it appropriate that her last cruise will another Gulf...the Persian. Too bad there's nothing to compare to Subic Bay in the Mideast for R n' R.

    Bravo Zulu, CVN-65

    --
    Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
    1. Re:Gulf to Gulf by couchslug · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I served 1981-2007 and saw the changes first hand. The military will stay full with or without religious fanatics.

      I owe no religion respect. I respect willingness to fight, but the military climate before it began to fill with Evangelicals was much more to my liking.

      --
      "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
  4. Thank you... by JasoninKS · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Thank you "Big E" for your service. You've served your men and your country well.

  5. Efforts towards the next Enterprise by oracleguy01 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There currently are petitions to name the next unnamed planned Ford-class carrier (CVN-80) Enterprise. I personally hope CVN-80 will be named Enterprise.

    See: http://ussenterp.epetitions.net/signatures.php?petition_id=1870 and http://www.petitiononline.com/CVN80ENT/petition.html

  6. It was a beater in the 90's. by dcherryholmes · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I remember finishing Nuke School in the early nineties, and one of my buddies went surface and got assigned to the Enterprise. It was kind of a good deal for him since he went straight to the shipyard instead of going out to see on a non-hoopty vessel. But we stayed in touch for a while after our assignments and I remember him telling me "dude, I will *never* go out to sea on this thing, I'll jump ship first." Obviously a bit of hyperbole involved, but the ship was showing its age even back then.

    1. Re:It was a beater in the 90's. by DesScorp · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I remember finishing Nuke School in the early nineties, and one of my buddies went surface and got assigned to the Enterprise. It was kind of a good deal for him since he went straight to the shipyard instead of going out to see on a non-hoopty vessel. But we stayed in touch for a while after our assignments and I remember him telling me "dude, I will *never* go out to sea on this thing, I'll jump ship first." Obviously a bit of hyperbole involved, but the ship was showing its age even back then.

      Back in the late 80's, we had constant reactor safety drills on Big E. She's got eight old and unique reactors which even then required a lot more TLC than the two more modern reactors on the Nimitz class. I almost got to hearing those drills on the 1MC in my sleep they happened so often. "Emergency in number 3 MMR", etc. They were always drills, of course, but man... they happened a lot.

      --
      Life is hard, and the world is cruel
  7. Re:Story is wrong: by vikingpower · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I was a junior Navy officer for some time, in a NATO-member Navy. One of the few things I learned quite thoroughly in that time was: "Never trust what an admiral says. Never. Ever. Find your own facts".

    --
    Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
  8. carriers are people too by Goldsmith · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As much as a ship like the Enterprise is important to the Navy (and it's hard to find one which is more important to the modern Navy), what is truly amazing about modern carriers are the way the people on them work together.

    If you ever have a chance to cruise on a carrier, go for it. Watching launch and recovery of planes is amazing, particularly at night. People die if someone makes a small mistake, stands in the wrong place, leaves a tool or spare nut lying around, or sets the pressure on an arresting cable just a little off. So they don't do anything wrong. Several hundred people working together flawlessly is really something to see.

  9. Asbestos Kills by drainbramage · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The plans called for the steel beams to be wrapped in asbestos.
    By the time construction was in prgogree the use of asbestos was banned.
    Blow on insulation was used.
    Much of the blow on insulation got blowed off, the rest did not have the properties required to portect the structure from a prologed exposure to fire.

    --
    No brain, no pain.
  10. Re:Story is wrong: by WindBourne · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yes, they have exactly one Aircraft carrier. HOWEVER, they have 4 keels laid already. In addition, it is though that the last one is nuclear powered. Add to that some 20 boomers and 15 attack subs, with 1-2 new booms/1-2 new attack subs going to sea EACH YEAR, well, I doubt that you will consider them piss poor in about 5 years.

    What else you are missing is that their space program is part of their military. All of this man flight and their new space station is actually a military base.

    Then add to that the fact that they spend more of their GDP on military than does even America and that was 5 years ago. Since that time, the American DOD budget has been steady or dropped, while China's has increased 5-10% EACH year.
    Quite honestly, you should consider a bit of humility.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  11. Re:Story is wrong: by Swampash · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is the 21st century. Aircraft carriers are nothing more than floating coffins. Time after time in war game after war game, modern carriers go straight to the bottom - sunk by everything from 2-man crews in speedboats to ballistic missiles.

    Aircraft carriers are the fucking Death Star and every man and his dog has an X-Wing and proton torpedoes. Floating coffins.