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US Navy Decommissions the First Nuclear-Powered Aircraft Carrier (engadget.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the end-of-an-era dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: The Navy has decommissioned the USS Enterprise (CVN-65), the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. The vessel launched in 1961 and is mainly known for playing a pivotal role in several major incidents and conflicts, including the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War and the 2003 Iraq War. However, it also served as the quintessential showcase for what nuclear ships could do. Its eight reactors let it run for years at a time, all the while making more room for the aircraft and their fuel. As you might guess, the decommissioning process (which started when the Enterprise went inactive in 2012) is considerably trickier than it would be for a conventional warship. It wasn't until December 2016 that crews finished extracting nuclear fuel, and the ship will have to be partly dismantled to remove the reactors. They'll be disposed of relatively safely at Hanford Site, home of the world's first plutonium reactor. Whatever you think of the tech, the ship leaves a long legacy on top of its military accomplishments. It proved the viability of nuclear aircraft carriers, leading the US to build the largest such fleet in the world. Also, this definitely isn't the last (real-world) ship to bear the Enterprise name -- the future CVN-80 will build on its predecessor with both more efficient reactors and systems designed for modern combat, where drones and stealth are as important as fighters and bombers. It won't be ready until 2027, but it should reflect many of the lessons learned over the outgoing Enterprise's 55 years of service.

49 of 203 comments (clear)

  1. Obligatory... by lord_mike · · Score: 5, Insightful

    “Let’s make sure that history never forgets the name Enterprise. Picard out”

    1. Re:Obligatory... by pr0t0 · · Score: 2

      Nooocleeeaarrr Wessels

      --
      I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
    2. Re:Obligatory... by the_Bionic_lemming · · Score: 2

      Maybe if Captain Kames Kirk does great on the Zumwalt , they'll give him Enterprise!

      --
      _ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
    3. Re:Obligatory... by MachineShedFred · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yeah, because the Navy wasn't going to continue building aircraft carriers after they proved invaluable in every armed conflict since World War II. Would you rather they continued to burn millions of gallons of oil to move the thing around and generate steam?

      This ship proved that nuclear propulsion works, and is far better than diesel. And since the US Navy has had a grand total of zero nuclear reactor accidents in over 50 years of operating dozens of vessels, maybe this was a good thing. Chalk it up to Admiral Rickover's insistence that every officer serving on one of his nuclear ships needed proper training, and got it before taking the post.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    4. Re:Obligatory... by Noble713 · · Score: 2

      While every geek in the DoD is wishing for this, it is unlikely. Apparently, the Skippers of aircraft carriers are drawn from the ranks of the naval aviation community. Considering Kirk is the CO of a destroyer, he's almost certainly a Surface Warfare Officer. At best they'll make him the senior man of CVN-80 Enterprise's escorts.

    5. Re:Obligatory... by dunkelfalke · · Score: 5, Informative

      US Navy never had a reactor accident not only because of the training but also because of a quite different reactor construction, generally quite small reactors built from prohibitively expensive materials and ridiculously high fuel enrichment (nuclear submarines run on almost pure U-235).
      Naval reactors are also refueled just once or twice in their (rather short) lifetime. Nuclear propulsion works, but it is so expensive that only a military organisation with basically limitless funding can afford it. Civilian nuclear propulsion won't ever happen, icebreakers are the only exception.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
  2. Defueling by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Enterprise had 8 A2W reactors so there was a lot of cutting and fuel removal that had to take place. In contrast, the next Enterprise will have 2 propulsion reactors. It would be nice if they can turn he into a museum somewhere, much like was done with the Nautilus.

    --
    I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
    1. Re:Defueling by FireballX301 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I heard once that if Enterprise had ever operated with all four propulsion plants in dual reactor mode, the ship would easily be the fastest capital ship in the world, and that the Nimitz classes are all much slower than the Enterprise was if taken to flank speed.

    2. Re: Defueling by gweilo8888 · · Score: 5, Informative

      You'd think so, but apparently Entreprise is to be entirely scrapped, and not even a significant piece of her such as her island will be placed in a museum:

      http://www.military.com/daily-news/2012/10/22/enterprise-nimitz-class-carriers-wont-be-museums.html

    3. Re:Defueling by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 5, Funny

      I wonder how much it cost to take all the radioactive parts from the ship and store them until they are no longer radioactive. I'm guessing that's quite a long time, as spent nuke fuel has a half life of 10,000 years. What's the cost of just one night watchman for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for 10,000 years? I hope that was included in the costs/benefits analysis.

      To be fair, the costs drop considerably after civilization ends...

      --
      You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
    4. Re:Defueling by tomhath · · Score: 5, Informative

      The limiting factor with nuke powered ships is the propellers; you can only spin them so fast before they start to cavitate (usually somewhere around 100 knots for a big surface ship, somewhat higher for a submarine), The engines can deliver the horsepower.

    5. Re:Defueling by hackertourist · · Score: 2

      The USN has never published a top speed (just "at least 30 knots"), I wonder if they'll declassify the data now that the ship's been decommissioned.

      This article makes a good case that a top speed higher than 33.6 knots is unlikely.
      With all 8 reactors at full power, the ship makes more steam than the turbines (rated for 280kshp) can handle.

    6. Re:Defueling by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      The limiting factor for speed of any ship is its length and the size of the resulting bow wave. Regardless of how much power you can put out beyond a certain speed a ship starts to effectively climb over it's own bow wave and suddenly needs an exponential increase in propulsion power for a maginal gain.

      The propellers would cavitate and destroy themselves long before a ship overcame these limits imposed by their dimensions, not by their engine.

    7. Re:Defueling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The limiting factor with nuke powered ships is the propellers; you can only spin them so fast before they start to cavitate (usually somewhere around 100 knots for a big surface ship, somewhat higher for a submarine), The engines can deliver the horsepower.

      Umm, no.

      The limiting factor on the top speed of the Enterprise was the strength of her propeller shafts. IIRC, the #4 propulsion plant's shaft was over 600 feet long.

      Enterprise was originally built with high-speed screws that were removed in her first overhaul (again, IIRC) because the higher torque needed to spin them would have limited the life of the shafts.

      Even without the high-speed screws, she was faster than the Nimitz-class carriers. Enterprise had a hull that was longer and thinner, and she had 320,000 HP compared to the 260,000 or 280,000 for the Nimitz class. I'd venture that Enterprise could top out at over 40 kts even at the end of her life.

      But hey, what do I know. I only ran those propulsion plants for a couple of years.

  3. That's not a "quote" of Engadget's report... by gweilo8888 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...it's the entire contents of the article, minus the ads and with Slashdot's wrapped around it instead. This is copyright theft, pure and simple, and this summary should be deleted and replaced with a much, MUCH more abbreviated version.

    1. Re:That's not a "quote" of Engadget's report... by bws111 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Oh, but they did abbreviate it! They managed to remove all the paragraph formatting.

    2. Re:That's not a "quote" of Engadget's report... by SeaFox · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ...it's the entire contents of the article, minus the ads and with Slashdot's wrapped around it instead..

      If the entire article is only 255 words, Engadget's paying that editor too much.

    3. Re:That's not a "quote" of Engadget's report... by Xenographic · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No, that's simply copyright infringement.

      You can't really "steal" a copyright unless you actually re-registered it in your own name somehow, perhaps by creating a fake memorandum of transfer. I don't see anyone depriving them of the copyright itself, just infringing upon some of the exclusive rights granted to them by copyright. At least, assuming the submitter wasn't authorized by the copyright holder. I sincerely doubt that they do have any such authorization, but Engaget and anyone they chose to inform are the only ones who have actual knowledge of that fact one way or another.

    4. Re:That's not a "quote" of Engadget's report... by SeaFox · · Score: 2

      If the article is so bad, why is Slashdot linking to it in the first place?

      We're talking about the same Slashdot whose editors approve regurgitated press releases and Bennett Haselton, right?

    5. Re:That's not a "quote" of Engadget's report... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Informative

      255 words is about 3x the attention span of the average Engadget reader, so actually for them it's a long-form essay.

      --
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    6. Re:That's not a "quote" of Engadget's report... by gweilo8888 · · Score: 2

      Yep, however that's not a reason to condone copyright theft because "Well it's only short."

    7. Re:That's not a "quote" of Engadget's report... by Xenographic · · Score: 2

      I'm protesting the sort of unclear thinking that caused someone to use an emotionally charged word that is not correct on any level.

      As for the rest, think what you wish, but I don't believe I have anything copyright infringing on here. I basically gave up on movies & TV a long time ago and I can hardly find anything to watch on YouTube or CR. My games are either free (Nethack, DF) or from GoG / Steam. No emulators or ROMs. You might well be right that nearly everyone has probably committed some sort of copyright violation at some point by now, though, but that only serves to show how overreaching that law has become.

  4. Enterprise by Fire_Wraith · · Score: 4, Informative

    For the curious, the US Navy has already decided on the next ship to be named the U.S.S. Enterprise. It will be the third Gerald R. Ford class aircraft carrier, scheduled to be laid down in 2018, launched in 2023, and commissioned in 2025. No word yet on whether it will be sent on a five-year mission afterwards.

    Personally, I wish they'd named the first ship of that class Enterprise, and let Ford be one of the latter ones, so it could be the "Enterprise Class." Ah well. :)

    1. Re:Enterprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Personally, I wish they'd named the first ship of that class Enterprise, and let Ford be one of the latter ones, so it could be the "Enterprise Class." Ah well. :)

      Why not keep the ship name "Enterprise", but rename the class to "Constitution"?

    2. Re:Enterprise by Tokolosh · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Navy ships should have proper, bold, majestic, fighting names. Stop naming them after defunct politicians and overambitious military blowhards.

      The Royal Navy knows how to do it.

      --
      Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
    3. Re:Enterprise by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Personally, I wish they'd named the first ship of that class Enterprise, and let Ford be one of the latter ones

      Personally, I think we should stop naming ships, or anything else, after dead politicians. Or, even worse, living politicians.

    4. Re:Enterprise by istartedi · · Score: 3, Informative

      In true Star Trek form though, the original Enterprise is actually a Constitution class star ship. I'm too lazy to see if any of the later Enterprises defined their class.

      --
      For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
    5. Re:Enterprise by magarity · · Score: 4, Funny

      Navy ships should have proper, bold, majestic, fighting names. Stop naming them after defunct politicians and overambitious military blowhards.

      The Royal Navy knows how to do it.

      Only after they learned the hard way with what happened to The Prince of Wales.

    6. Re:Enterprise by jeff4747 · · Score: 3, Informative

      The -D (ST:TNG) is a Galaxy class. And I'm not enough of a Trekkie to know the rest.

    7. Re:Enterprise by F34nor · · Score: 4, Funny

      Name them like Iain M. Banks does. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    8. Re:Enterprise by SJHillman · · Score: 2

      These are the ones from the TV show and movies.

      NX-01 - NX class - served 2151 to 2161
      NCC-1701 - Constitution class - served 2245 to 2285
      NCC-1701-A - Constitution class (refit) - served 2286 to 2293
      NCC-1701-B - Excelsior class (refit) - served 2293 to 2329
      NCC-1701-C - Ambassador class - served 2332 to 2344
      NCC-1701-D - Galaxy class - served 2363 to 2371
      NCC-1701-D alternate timeline - Galaxy class (refit), aka Galaxy-X, aka Galaxy-dreadnought - served ? to ~2395
      NCC-1701-E - Sovereign class - served 2372 to ?
      NCC-1701-J - Universe class (possible/alternate future) - served 26th century

    9. Re:Enterprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      The next one should be Abstract class.

    10. Re:Enterprise by usuallylost · · Score: 2

      I looked it up. None of the ships to bear the name Enterprise in Star Trek defined their class.

      Ships with the name Enterprise were, in historical order from the main Star Trek timeline, of the NX class, Constitution class, Constitution refit class, Excelsior refit class, Ambassador class, Galaxy class and Sovereign class

    11. Re:Enterprise by Talderas · · Score: 2

      Only about 24 carriers (Essex class) built during WW2 had a 90+ aircraft capacity. Most of the rest of those had a capacity of 24-36 aircraft and probably displaced around 11,000 tons. The Essex class had a displacement of 27,000 tons. The first supercarrier class was the Forrestal and Kitty Hawk at 60,000 tons followed by the Enterprise at 93,000 tons and the Nimitz and Gerald Ford classes at 100,000 tons displacement. Between Nimitz and Ford and the limit of 12 supercarriers in the navy you're talking a total displacement of 1,200,000. The 24 Essex had a total displacement of 648,000 tons. The remaining 552,000 tons would be equivalent to the displacement of 50 of those light escort carriers.

      --
      "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
  5. Who would sink a nuclear ship? by MadCow42 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You have to admit... what army/navy/etc. would sink a nuclear ship in their own waters during war? You'd have to think twice about that - it could be a good deterrent to being attacked. If sunk, it could be a major issue in your region for generations to come.

    --
    I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
    1. Re:Who would sink a nuclear ship? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Informative

      what army/navy/etc. would sink a nuclear ship in their own waters during war?

      Given the opportunity, all of them.

      If sunk, it could be a major issue in your region for generations to come.

      Nine nuclear ships have sunk at sea. None of them resulted in significant radiation release. The reactors are designed to withstand sinking.

    2. Re:Who would sink a nuclear ship? by DerekLyons · · Score: 2

      Nine nuclear ships have sunk at sea. None of them resulted in significant radiation release.

      Yet.
       
      And precisely none of them were sunk under attack. (And two of them aren't even in the ocean any more - they are salvaged.) That's an awful thin experience base on which to make long term judgements.

    3. Re: Who would sink a nuclear ship? by Shane_Optima · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you really want to know what can happen, then look to the Dai-Ichi reactor complex in Fukushima.

      Non sequitur much? This is about a reactor at the bottom of the sea which stands a good chance of being flooded due damage to the vessel before anything melts down. Fukushima was about a reactor overheating and sending crap into the air. It also wasn't nearly as dangerous as the hysteria would have you believe, but that's another story.

      As I said elsewhere, people will happily poison themselves and stunt their childrens' IQs by a few points by eating tuna that's been contaminated (*worldwide*) by mercury from coal burning and gold mining and then afterwards go for a nice relaxing lie-down on the beach to give themselves cancer-inducing radiation burns, but god forbid there's a localized incidence of slightly increased radionuclide-based radioactivity somewhere in the world.

      Centralia also needs to be brought up whenever people like to imply that the damage from nuclear is uniquely long-lived compared to the alternatives. And the situation there isn't unique.

    4. Re: Who would sink a nuclear ship? by Shane_Optima · · Score: 2
      You're just blathering. The point is not that nuclear is completely safe; it's that nothing is.

      They can't even construct the plants efficiently, let alone be trusted to operate them.

      They can't even be trusted to mine coal, let alone burn it.

      You *were* aware that there are dozens of coal mine fires burning around the world right now, right? That they spew forth toxic gasses and cause the ground to collapse and it ends up rendering many square miles of land uninhabitable? That thousands of people have been forced to evacuate? That it's not too unusual for the fires (like Centralia's) to have lifespans on the order of hundreds of years?

      How many coals miners have died from cave-ins? How many workers have died from coal dust or petroleum explosions? How many civilians have died from petroleum and coal? It's monstrous. Nuclear has killed a very, very small number of people over the past 50 years outside of some moronic shit the USSR did. Go ahead and find the worst estimates for increased cancer rates and toss that into the fatality figure; it's still a ridiculously small number compared to hydrocarbons. Because nuclear safety is held to a completely different standard.

  6. Nuclear desalinization after disasters by nomadicGeek · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My father pointed out to me that the nuclear carriers can be a great help after humanitarian disasters as they can desalinate large quantities of water. I found an article about the Carl Vincent that says that it can desalinate 400,000 gallons of water a day. We stationed it off the coast of Haiti after the earthquakes there.

    http://content.time.com/time/s...

    1. Re:Nuclear desalinization after disasters by aaarrrgggh · · Score: 2

      The carrier can also be set up to back-feed the electrical grid in port... and it can move pretty fast.

    2. Re:Nuclear desalinization after disasters by aaarrrgggh · · Score: 2

      Yes; if you need to build a maritime vessel to provide power and desalinization an aircraft carrier would not be the first choice. However, if you build a fleet of aircraft carriers that are staffed and dispatched around the world, and only occasionally needed for supporting aircraft... it makes a lot of sense to be able to use them as emergency response facilities.

  7. Photons? by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Team leader, this is team two. Come in, please.

    I have the coordinates of the reactor.

    Kirk here.

    Admiral, we have found the nuclear wessel.

    Well done, you two!

    And Admiral... it is the *Enterprise*!

    1. Re:Photons? by Slider451 · · Score: 2

      First thing I thought of, too.

      I was bummed to find out that the the USS Enterprise in the movie was actually played by the USS Ranger, temporarily re-branded.

      --
      Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
  8. Hanford "relatively safe"??? by mspohr · · Score: 2, Informative

    Looks like the Hanford site has had quite a few problems:
    Hanford Nuclear Waste Cleanup Plant May Be Too Dangerous
    https://www.scientificamerican...

    Report finds serious defects at Hanford nuclear waste treatment plant
    http://www.latimes.com/nation/...

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  9. Trump class a-coming by mi · · Score: 4, Funny

    Are you that afraid of there appearing a Trump-class of ships some day?

    It will be huge. And beautiful...

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    1. Re:Trump class a-coming by Tokolosh · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Ha, indeed. Democrats are waking up to the realization that giving the government power will backfire.

      Republicans, being slower on the uptake, have yet to learn this lesson.

      --
      Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
    2. Re:Trump class a-coming by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Funny

      Are you that afraid of there appearing a Trump-class of ships some day?

      Weapons on any Trump class ships will probably be unable to aim properly, inflicting equal damage on friend, foe, and crew.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    3. Re:Trump class a-coming by nmb3000 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Are you that afraid of there appearing a Trump-class of ships some day?

      Weapons on any Trump class ships will probably be unable to aim properly, inflicting equal damage on friend, foe, and crew.

      Probably because the guns are so tiny.

      --
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      /)