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"NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — 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.
At 50 years old, the ship is the oldest carrier in the fleet. Its inactivation ceremony — a retirement party for ships — is set for Dec. 1. After that the ship will be defueled and stripped down in Newport News, and eventually towed to Puget Sound, Wash., where its eight reactors will be taken out of the ship for disposal."
"NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — 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.
At 50 years old, the ship is the oldest carrier in the fleet. Its inactivation ceremony — a retirement party for ships — is set for Dec. 1. After that the ship will be defueled and stripped down in Newport News, and eventually towed to Puget Sound, Wash., where its eight reactors will be taken out of the ship for disposal."