[Nathan Zachary]

Scrap the bugger. No way should Twice it's original cost (face it, these things NEVER come in on budget) be sucked out of the taxpayers pockets, just so it can be a museum piece.

And who knows, Obama might take it for his own private yacht.

Sell it for 79 million worth of scrap to a US steel mill. At today's prices and with union labor, it should make 100 million worth of new steel.

[americanophile]

haha...no sentimentalist you. I should think a ship that fast would have a perfectly good military application. A great high-speed troop transport.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Not yet.

Scrap metal prices (it was made back in the cheap days of asbestos insulation and lead paint!) ain't what they used to be.

Wait a little while. Prices will go up.

On the other hand, a recession drives DOWN labor cost and steel prices, and there are more people available to do the same work at lower prices. We can get cheap labor to scrape the hull, insides, and remove all that bad stuff overseas .....

[elcid1970]

No, don’t scrap the SS United States. Tow her out to sea, cover her with an enormous Stars and Stripes and give her a decent burial at sea, like they did for the remains of the battleship USS Maine.

Too many noble old ships wound up under the scrapyards’ cutting torches. The SSUS is special, JMHO.

[Know et al]

Sell it for 79 million worth of scrap to a US steel mill. At today’s prices and with union labor, it should make 100 million worth of new steel.

And, the demos and rinos would spend the 79 million on pork
as soon as it reached the treasury.