Future
Nimitz-class carriers were designed to have a 50-year service life. At the end of the service life, ships will be decommissioned. This process will first take place on Nimitz and is estimated to cost from $750 to $900 million. This compares with an estimate of $53 million for a conventionally powered carrier. Most of the difference in cost is attributed to the deactivation of the nuclear power plants and safe removal of radioactive material and other contaminated equipment. A new class of carriers, the Gerald R. Ford class, is being constructed to replace previous vessels after decommissioning. Ten of these are expected, and the first will enter service in 2015 to replace USS Enterprise. The rest of these new carriers are to replace the oldest Nimitz ships as they reach the end of their service life. The new carriers will have a similar design to Bush (using an almost identical hull shape) but will also have further technological and structural improvements.
Read more about this topic: Nimitz-class Aircraft Carrier
Famous quotes containing the word future:
“It lives less in the present
Than in the future always,
And less in both together
Than in the past.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Such is the miraculous nature of the future of exiles: what is first uttered in the impotence of an overheated apartment becomes the fate of nations.”
—Salman Rushdie (b. 1948)
“Where have those flowers and butterflies all gone
That science may have staked the future on?
He seems to say the reason why so much
Should come to nothing must be fairly faced.....”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)