This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Bigger than the RMS Titanic and faster than the RMS Queen Mary, the SS United States was a nautical wonder during the mid-20th century—the nation's premier luxury ocean liner that once ferried presidents and Hollywood elite across the Atlantic in opulence. Brought into service in 1952, it could carry 1,984 passengers on a crossing that took just three days and 10 hours—a remarkably fast trip for its era.
Built during the Cold War, it was also secretly designed to carry 14,000 troops, according to the U.S. It was decommissioned in 1969 and spent its years haunting old shipyards while failed plans to restore it came and went. Now, the once-mighty ship is bound for one last voyage—to the bottom of the sea.
If all goes as planned, it will be sunk on Wednesday, Veterans Day, and become the world's biggest artificial reef made from an intentionally sunken ship, according to the SS United States Conservancy, the group that is partnering with Okaloosa County, Florida, in the $13 million project. "This saves the ship from being scrapped for metal or meeting some other demise," Trey Goodwin, the chairman of the Okaloosa County Commission, said in a statement to Northeastern Global News. "No, it won't be sailing the sea, but it will still be at sea.
It lives on." The vessel measures 990 feet (302 meters) in length and stands 17 stories high. Noah Haag, a researcher with Northeastern University's Marine and Environmental Sciences Department, said ideally a marine study of the underwater biomass—life in the area—would have been done before the sinking of the ship. That way, scientists could get a before-and-after picture of the sea life to determine whether the reef is really supporting more fish.
But, in the big picture, "the shipwreck will be a good place for fish species," said Haag. "They'll have places to hide, forage and propagate." Haag, along with David Kimbro, a Northeastern associate professor and head of the Kimbro Lab in the university's marine center, has been studying artificial reefs for years. Together with other co-authors, they recently published a paper on artificial reefs in the peer-reviewed Journal of Marine Science.
The paper, titled "Global synthesis reveals that artificial reef units consistently augment fish assemblages," is not connected to the SS United States project, but it reviewed studies of 82 artificial reefs across the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans with the aim of defining what types of reefs are best for sea life. The researchers conducted the study because natural coral reefs are increasingly in danger, Kimbro said. Nearly half of the natural reef-building corals in the world face an elevated risk of extinction, according to a paper published in October in the journal Nature.
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