That's just it, though - CVN-65 was the first of her kind, and they were making up a lot of it as they went along. It's a floating prototype for a whole new kind of carrier. That sort of thing does not lend itself to graceful disassembly and preservation after the fact. I guarantee that during her construction, the eventual decommissioning was the last thing on anyone's mind.

The process of removing the eight reactors will leave the Big E an empty shell. Rumor says the flight deck would be barely recognizable. Thus cost of restoring her to museum status after the removal is almost the cost of rebuilding her from scratch.

The best hope is that they take some sections off her for a museum at some location. She served her time very well.

It is a shame that the process of decommissioning a unique vessel such as the CVN-65 Enterprise wouldn't allow it to become a museum ship. Just like Marverius, I hope there are sections of her that can be transported to some museum as a memorandum to the ship.

I salute yet another Enterprise who have served her country well and hope that the next Enterprise will live up to her lineage.

Sad to see legends go,

First our HMS Ark Royal, now the US's Enterprise

Hopefully, they will at least save the island.

Maybe the next one will be CVN-65-A.

My name is Altecha Chan and I approve of this message.

from what ive read the reason why the E is getting scrapped is cause in the wake of 9/11(2001) she was recalled from the indian ocean of to a point in the persian gulf,her and her entire task force went flank speed all the way there.but those 8 reactors pushed out enough energy for the E for her to reach the 50-60 knot range all the way there beating her task force by days and damaging her keel in the process.it is sad they wont just repair the damage instead of scrapping her.

Shhhhhh ! Nobody's supposed to even suspect that the Big E is the fastest carrier afloat.

http://www.uscarriers.net/cvn65history.htm

Not true. She was only one day out from the Strait of Hormuz on 9/11. She was redirected at flank speed, did beat her escorts, but didn't need to maintain that speed for long (certainly nowhere near the ship's own records) and no damage to the ship from the following combat operations was made public. They don't keep a ship in active duty for eleven years with an irreparable keel.

She's being retired because she's the oldest active duty ship in the US navy, the oldest nuclear ship in the world, the smallest carrier left in the US Navy, a member of a discontinued class who's successor class is now also up for replacement.