Posted on 08/16/2018 10:52:50 AM PDT by Rebelbase
The writer of the article makes a pretty big deal out of the possible cost of scrapping the Enterprise to be 1/8 the cost of a new carrier. For $1.5BILLION, I would think the Enterprise could be completely refurbished into a truly useful weapon in our arsenal - at a fraction of the cost of a brand new ship.
Sorry, I hit a 3 where I should have hit a 5. Refit was at 30. Refueling is a major operation.Costing model of the latest carrier, the Gerald Ford, was based on a 50-year life cycle with a refit at around 30 years.
The point is that constructing these things commits the government to expenses throughout that cycle no matter what the actual disposition of the vessel turns out to be. A change in political administration during that time doesn't really help much except potentially on the back end when that administration is no longer in office. That's why we still have what we have despite the clear intentions of the 0bama administration.
just leave it unguarded in East Los Angeles and it will be gone in a week.
yeah I know, it was more a wishful response I’ve lived in the Tri City are since 1979.
My dad took me out into Boston Harbor to see it.
Just....awesome. This was before Star Trek TOS so I must have been really young, but I remember it vividly.
Hooboy... Yeah, you'd be in a position to know all about that...
Fascinating place, Hanford.
The difference is that Enterprise has eight reactors. The rest have two. I’m not a nuke, so I don’t know all the particulars.
Repurpose them into weapons. Set the reactor to critical and point it towards an enemy port, full speed ahead :)
Keep driving them back and forth by the Spratleys and let the Chinese handle them.
...Along with most of that village.
Marianas trench? That would be my pick too. Find the spot where one plate is being crushed under another and drop the ship there. Let the ship get ground back into the Earth.
Turn her into an ice breaker .
I qualified on A1W for my nuclear submarine duty which was the prototype reactor that was located in the Idaho desert for the Tunaprise (the nickname at prototype for the ship).
At the prototype they had two reactors with one control room. On the ship, they had EIGHT reactors.
Why so many? It was because the reactors were closer to submarine reactors (lower power) than they were to later generations of aircraft carrier reactors.
They typically remove the core (nuclear fuel) decades earlier and then let some of the shorter life isotopes decay in the piping and the rx vessel before they start disassembly.
I watched an old test reactor similar to these decommissioned in South Carolina. Even after decades, it was quite a job.
Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing if the answers to the problem causes more problems. I think it should be maintained and smarter people beyond idiots in Congress can do the right thing.
Hillary hasn’t sold it to the Russians yet?
She really is slipping.
“Replace the reactors or whatever, return her to duty. Probably cheaper.”
That is the entire problem/expense. The reactors need replacing and they weren’t really designed to be removed.
And once you cut them out the cost of putting the ship back together would be staggering. A lot of nuke ships are designed to last only as long as the reactor. Some were designed for one mid-life refueling but even that is now considered not worth it.
Tow it out to see and SHUT all the water tight doors and use it for target practice and all the CVN nay sayers will actually see how hard it is to sink a carrier. That will shut them up.
A1W? Damn that’s old school. I qualified on S8G... and prayed with the rest of my class that I wouldn’t end up on the Enterprise. Dodged the bullet but knew several people posted there, and they were not happy at all.
a scrap heap sent to the breakers...
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