Commissioned on November 25, 1961, at Newport News, Virginia the USS Enterprise (CVN-65) is one such monumental achievement in naval history.
Since it marked the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, it fundamentally changed the very course of naval strategy and the American projection of power around the world.
The nuclear propulsion system of the Enterprise allowed it to remain deployed for an indefinite period, thus negating frequent refueling, which had otherwise been one major limitation of naval operations from earlier times.
This naturally allowed the U.S. Navy to maintain a chronic presence in the international waters, thereby vastly improving its flexibility on the strategic level.
The carrier would now be able to remain at sea for longer durations without refueling, making it viable for use in distant regions, thus affording benefits that the diesel-powered predecessors had never been able to offer.
The Enterprise played such critical roles throughout its storied career in several conflicts and crises. It was part of the blockade during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, where Soviet ships were barred from bringing nuclear missiles into Cuba, marking a moment in Cold War history.
The Enterprise was also the first nuclear-powered ship to become operational in combat during the Vietnam War with aircraft against Viet Cong targets.
Its technical specifications do not differ in magnificence. Measuring 1,123 feet in length, Enterprise is the longest naval ship ever built, being only about 300 feet shorter than the iconic Empire State Building of New York City.
It achieves a speed of 33.6 knots per hour through the use of eight Westinghouse A2W nuclear reactors.
However, the ship was initially fitted with a prototype Basic Point Defense Missile System, and it later was NATO Sea Sparrow missiles and Phalanx CIWS gun mounts mounted on it.
Although it was a pioneering design and had a long record of service, the Enterprise could not be preserved as a museum. As stated by Andy Burns, former US Navy Surface Warfare & Flight Officer, its nuclear reactors were too complicated to make the vessel a museum.
“Nuclear-powered ships are basically built around their reactors and the associated machinery. There’s no way to remove the reactors without essentially taking the ship apart,” Burns explained.
The process of dismantling the reactors would be so invasive that reassembling the ship afterward would be cost-prohibitive, if not practically impossible.
The Enterprise was decommissioned in December 2012 but was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on February 3, 2017. This, however, does not mean that the legacy of the Enterprise is not being felt today.
Indeed, this legacy continues to manifest in terms of the influence on naval strategy and on how modern aircraft carriers are designed.