Naval Ship From 'Star Trek IV' On Final Voyage Home
The USS Ranger doubled as the USS Enterprise, the nuclear 'wessel' Chekov and Uhura looked for
The USS Ranger ended a stellar 36-year career more than 20 years
ago, serving in conflicts ranging from Vietnam to the first Gulf war.
But now the ship, which stood in as the USS Enterprise in 1987's "Star
Trek IV: The Voyage Home," is on one final voyage: to the scrapyard.
The Ranger (CV-61) was towed out of Bremerton, Washington, on Thursday, according to the Associated Press, and is now on its way to Texas — a 16,000-mile journey that will take it around the southern tip of South America. Unlike the Enterprise's five-year mission, this one will be just five months, getting a final stop at International Shipbreaking in Brownsville.
Bremerton is a ship graveyard for the Navy, currently home to the USS Independence and the USS Kitty Hawk. It also was home to the USS Constellation, which made its own blue mile journey to Texas last year. The Independence will follow the Constellation and Ranger later this year, while the Kitty Hawk will be kept in reserve until the military completes work on the USS Gerald R. Ford in 2019.
The ship was used in the scenes of "Star Trek IV" when Uhura and Chekov, played by Nichelle Nichols and Walter Koenig, need to retrieve nuclear energy from the engines so they could re-crystalize the warp engines of the captured Klingon Bird of Prey the crew used to time travel back to the 1980s. The ship was rebranded the Enterprise, an effort to connect the film to the famous starship (which only appears in the end). The ship also was used for the popular chase scene that starts when Chekov tries to stun the security people on the ship only to find his phaser wasn't working.
The Ranger was built in Virginia in 1954 at a cost in today's dollars of $1.6 billion. It was 1,046 feet in length and had a compliment of nearly 3,800 soldiers and officers. By comparison, the original USS Enterprise in "Star Trek" was a little more than 980 feet long, and had a crew compliment of just a few hundred.
No stranger to Hollywood, the Ranger also appeared in "The Six Million Dollar Man," "Top Gun" and "Flight of the Intruder."
The Ranger (CV-61) was towed out of Bremerton, Washington, on Thursday, according to the Associated Press, and is now on its way to Texas — a 16,000-mile journey that will take it around the southern tip of South America. Unlike the Enterprise's five-year mission, this one will be just five months, getting a final stop at International Shipbreaking in Brownsville.
Bremerton is a ship graveyard for the Navy, currently home to the USS Independence and the USS Kitty Hawk. It also was home to the USS Constellation, which made its own blue mile journey to Texas last year. The Independence will follow the Constellation and Ranger later this year, while the Kitty Hawk will be kept in reserve until the military completes work on the USS Gerald R. Ford in 2019.
The ship was used in the scenes of "Star Trek IV" when Uhura and Chekov, played by Nichelle Nichols and Walter Koenig, need to retrieve nuclear energy from the engines so they could re-crystalize the warp engines of the captured Klingon Bird of Prey the crew used to time travel back to the 1980s. The ship was rebranded the Enterprise, an effort to connect the film to the famous starship (which only appears in the end). The ship also was used for the popular chase scene that starts when Chekov tries to stun the security people on the ship only to find his phaser wasn't working.
The Ranger was built in Virginia in 1954 at a cost in today's dollars of $1.6 billion. It was 1,046 feet in length and had a compliment of nearly 3,800 soldiers and officers. By comparison, the original USS Enterprise in "Star Trek" was a little more than 980 feet long, and had a crew compliment of just a few hundred.
No stranger to Hollywood, the Ranger also appeared in "The Six Million Dollar Man," "Top Gun" and "Flight of the Intruder."
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