posted 06-08-2007 07:20 AM               

Ironically, the quarterdeck never had a plaque acknowledging her role in the Gemini and it came as a suprise to most (including the then CO) when being informed of the ship' involement in the program.

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Scott Schneeweis

URL http://www.SPACEAHOLIC.com/

posted 06-08-2007 07:55 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by eurospace:
In which waters did they dumb the wreckage, and do they intend to recover the remains?

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She's gone for good. Disposing of old ships by target practice/sinking has become a more favored practice the last few years. Scrapping/shipbreaking, which used to be the traditional way to deal with them, has over the years brought with it an increasing number of safety, economic and environmental issues.

Towing the hulk of the ship out to sea and using it for target practice not only gets an old ship cleared out of the shipyard, but also gives the military something to practice on.

Sorry for rambling on...I used to work part-time on behalf of maritime preservation campaigns, so the topic was once pretty dear to me.

posted 06-08-2007 08:33 AM               

Florian

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Flown artifacts, autographs and more !
www.spaceflori.com

posted 06-08-2007 10:21 AM               

Although I never sailed in her, I exchanged many-a-message with her sailors over our various comms circuits. Her crew were nothing but super professionals and a pleasure to work with, even from a distance.

posted 06-08-2007 01:54 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by ea757grrl:
Scrapping/shipbreaking, which used to be the traditional way to deal with them, has over the years brought with it an increasing number of safety, economic and environmental issues.
jodie

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And dumping it in the ocean suddenly cleans the wreckage from its environmentally hazardous components?

Yep, of course, to wash yourself every morning, will cost you the expense of soap, in other words: is an "ecnomical issue". In common language, we'd call someone who just dumps his old shoes on the street or doesn't wash "a swine". Which is probably an insult to the animal.

To lead the line of thought a little further: retiring old generals and paying them a pension probably also raises "economical issues". Why not give the troops something to shoot on? Well, there are reasons why you don't.

'nuff said - dumping disused ships on the ocean ground is a lack of environmental consideration, to put it mildly.

posted 06-08-2007 02:51 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by eurospace:
'nuff said - dumping disused ships on the ocean ground is a lack of environmental consideration, to put it mildly.

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Not necessarily. Several ships are sunk each year in environments where they become artificial reefs. These sunken ships become home for all sorts of aquatic life. The live on in a new role that is actually beneficial to the environment.

posted 06-08-2007 10:09 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by eurospace:
'nuff said - dumping disused ships on the ocean ground is a lack of environmental consideration, to put it mildly.

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Forgive me if I sound like I'm taking this personally (I can promise you I'm not), but I didn't make the policy; it's just the way things are done, for good or ill, at the moment.

For various reasons shipbreaking in the United States is not the industry it once was -- there are a lot of federal environmental guidelines and worker safety regulations that have to be met. Shipbreaking is a very dangerous business and in the US it costs a lot of money to make these things happen while adhering to federal labor and environmental guidelines.

In the early 1990s when a lot of Cold War and reserve warships were sold for scrapping, there were a lot of firms that sprung up in US coastal cities that wanted to get in on the shipbreaking business. Many of them went belly-up and a lot of the ships didn't get scrapped on schedule and were "repossessed" by the Navy (in a way, that has something to do with why the USS Hornet is still with us).

The federal government tried to work around this in the late 1980s and early 1990s by selling some former warships to be scrapped in Asia, where costs and safety concerns aren't quite the factor they are in US scrapyards. However, this raised security concerns and also brought cries about "dumping American trash on foreign shores."

And while some aircraft carriers and battleships draw interest as candidates for preservation as museum ships, most ships don't have the "sex appeal" of one of these.

Since it's not economically feasible to scrap them (because of the factors above), the current favored practice is to strip the ships of everything usable, do a degree of "environmental abatement" when required (especially when the ship is being sunk as a reef), then tow the ships out to sea and sink them.

I agree with you that from an environmental standpoint, it's not the most environmentally friendly thing to do with an old ship. However, given the current state of affairs, that's how ships are disposed of these days.