USS Doris Miller

Okay.

So the USS Doris Miller is already being designed around electromagnetic catapults, the newer catapults, and changing that to the older version could mean redesigning parts of the ship, potentially adding billions of dollars to the cost, and there's also the problem that the US no longer has companies manufacturing the older catapult systems.

And naval experts argue that the newer technology, despite its early problems, is better suited to future operations, and they also warn that reversing course could put the US at a technological disadvantage against China.

Mm.

Anyway, that's a different story for a different time.

You know, I'm just gonna say what that flight deck would've looked like, you know, if they had just put it on Ford or Kennedy or Dory Miller, but we're apparently going back to steam catapults, so it'll only be two ships that'll, you know, have steamless catapults.

I would have a laugh if it turned out that what they did was just built the A-12.

[laughs] Now, that really would be interesting.

And, uh, finally, we're unpacking some really tense recent news transcripts.

These are dealing with a modern-day controversy surrounding a nuclear aircraft carrier that is currently named after Miller.

Which is a whole other layer to this story.

Yeah, it is.

In January 2020, on Martin Luther King Jr.

Day, President Donald Trump's administration made a massive historic announcement.

They declared that a new state-of-the-art nuclear aircraft carrier, CVN-81, would be named the USS Doris Miller.

And to understand the gravity of this, you have to know what a Ford-class super carrier is.