Why 'Nuclear' Navy Aircraft Carrier USS Enterprise Can't Become a Museum

When an American warship is decommissioned, it typically meets a predictable fate. More often than not, the decommissioned warship is scrapped. Rarely, the warship is used in a live-fire exercise, sunk or damaged to gauge the effectiveness of the ship’s defenses and the Navy’s offenses (see the USS America). Occasionally, when a warship is especially deserving, she is converted into a museum piece and preserved for the public to explore.

The USS New Jersey is an excellent example of a museum piece. So is the USS Texas. The USS Intrepid on the Hudson River in New York City is where this author first discovered his appreciation for military aviation.

Now, some advocates are proposing that the USS Enterprise, the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, which was decommissioned in 2012, be converted into a museum piece. The Enterprise was first commissioned in 1961. Over 1,100 feet long, the Enterprise was nicknamed “Big E,” and she served admirably for over half a century as the lead ship in the Enterprise class. 

The Enterprise featured an eight-reactor propulsion design – a distinct feature that makes her the only aircraft carrier to use more than two nuclear reactors. Enterprise is also distinct as the only carrier with more than two rudders; it has four. 

But a former U.S. Navy Surface Warfare & Flight Officer suggests that the Enterprise will never be converted into a museum. Here’s why.

USS Enterprise: Unlikely to Become a Museum Piece

According to Andy Burns, the Enterprise cannot be converted into a museum piece. “Nope. Defueling of the reactor was completed a few years ago but since then Big E has mostly just been sitting pierside at Newport News, Virginia, while the Navy tries to figure out how best to scrap her,” Burns wrote on Quora. “As the first nuclear-powered carrier ever to be decommissioned, it turns out the process is a lot more complicated than anticipated.”

If the Enterprise’s nuclear reactor has already been defueled, then what is the holdup?

“Nuclear powered ships are basically built around their reactors,” Burns explained. “There’s no way to remove the reactors without essentially taking the ship apart, and for obvious reasons the Navy doesn’t want to (and can’t, per environmental laws and regulations) simply leave [the reactor] in place.”

While the Enterprise is the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to be decommissioned, there are some comparable precedents: nuclear-powered submarines. As Burns explains, when a nuclear-powered submarine is decommissioned, the sub is “chopped up” and the reactors are “removed, sealed up, and shipped off to a long-term secure storage facility in eastern Washington.”

Will the Enterprise suffer a similar fate? Burns thinks so.

“Enterprise will probably have to be similarly disassembled,” Burns wrote, “and unlike the Nimitz-class boats, [Enterprise] has eight reactors. That process will be so invasive that reassembling her afterward would be cost-prohibitive, if not practically impossible.”

So, don’t expect to take a tour of the Enterprise with your family soon.  

About the Author: Harrison Kass 

Harrison Kass is a defense and national security writer with over 1,000 total pieces on issues involving global affairs. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken.