On This Day in History: September 24

USS Enterprise

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Where my Star Trek nerds at? Can you tell me how many spaceships were named Enterprise? Back on Earth, the longest naval vessel ever built was the eighth U.S. Navy ship to bear the name Enterprise, and it was the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Interestingly, it played an important role in averting nuclear war.

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: September 24, 1960--

Now decommissioned, “Big E” is over 1,100 feet long. She launched on September 24, 1960, and was supposed to be the first of six such carriers, but then the Pentagon looked at how much she cost and said holy fuck farts even we can’t get away with spending that much money, and cancelled building the other five. Fucker is so big she has eight nuclear reactors on board; she can hit 39 mph, fast enough to tow a barefoot water-skier. A full complement is over 5,800 crew, including 250 pilots. The ship can hold up to 90 aircraft.

Enterprise went into active service in October 1961 and a year later was on the front lines of the tensest military standoff in world history: the Cuban Missile Crisis. When President Kennedy learned the Soviets were building nuclear missile sites on Cuba designed for a fast first strike in a nuclear war, his military advisors said invade that fuckin’ island. And if Kennedy had chosen that option the island’s defenders would have used the short-range “tactical” nukes on the American troops approaching their shores and World War We Are So Fucking Fucked would have begun. Kennedy instead opted for a naval blockade of Cuba, and that big beast of a ship Enterprise was a part of it.

She became the first nuclear-powered ship to engage in combat in Vietnam in 1965 when she launched planes toward Hanoi to go blow up some commies. Enterprise lost many pilots during the Vietnam War, some of whom were considered MIA. They were never recovered despite the best efforts of Chuck Norris.

In 1983 she got stuck on a sandbar in San Francisco Bay while Star Trek helmsman George “Sulu” Takei was on board as a visitor. Embarrassing. A few years later Chekov and Uhura raided the ship’s nuclear reactors to get enough fuel to fly a couple of whales into the future in Star Trek IV. Then she spent a lot of time in the Middle East in the 90s and onward, finally sailing into her home port in Norfolk, Virginia in the fall of 2012 to be deactivated after more than half a century of service. She was decommissioned five years later and is awaiting recycling. Many requested she be turned into a museum, but the cost was considered prohibitive.

Speaking of things that are cost prohibitive, the USS Gerald Ford—a guy who was never elected president and also pardoned Nixon—was commissioned in 2017 at a cost of about $18 billion. The Gerald Ford isn’t as long as Enterprise, but is the largest warship ever built in terms of total displacement.

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