The next USS Missouri will not be a ship. It will be a boat. That’s what they call a submarine like the new USS Missouri. It will be commissioned in Groton, Connecticut on the 31st.

If the new USS Missouri could be dropped into the University of Missouri Tiger football stadium, it would just barely fit. It’s 377 feet long. It’s the size of a World War II cruiser, weighing nine tons. And it packs more firepower with its cruise missiles than the Battleship Missouri did.

Chairman Sam Bushman of the USS Missouri Commissioning Committee says the boat is 21st century technology. It has no periscope, for example, but has a photonic mast that uses a camera to see what’s above water. The image appears on big screens in the control room. “Fantastic,” he calls it.

The committee has raised about $230,000 to pay for the commissioning ceremonies and related events, a little short of the $300,000 goal. The money also is being used to stock the sub library and add Missouri touches to make the sub feel more homelike.

AUDIO: Interview with Sam Bushman (19 min)

The next USS Missouri is only weeks away from heading to open water and getting under it.

The SSN780, a Virgiinia-class submarine, will be the first Navy ship to carry our state’s names since the fabled BB-63, the World War II-built battleship that was in service through the first Gulf War and is now a privately-operated museum at the Pearl Harbor Memorial in Hawaii.

Rear Admiral Mike McLaughtlin, commander of the Navy’s Submarine Group Two, has briefed Governor Nixon and reporters on preparations for the ship’s commissioning on July 31. “You will be proud of Missouri when she is finally commissioned,” he said, and promised she would be around for a “good 33 years.”

McLaughlin says the Missouri will head out for sea trials next month or in June, during which time the crew will “wring out” the sub and make sure it performs properly. The Missouri not be armed during that trip. Its missiles and torpedoes will be loaded once it is considered a commissioned ship and the Navy takes control of it.

McLaughlin ways the crew has been with the ship for some time and is now honing its skills either on board or in shore-based stimulators he says can simulate about all at-sea conditions.

The submarine was christened in early December in Groton, Connecticut.

AUDIO: Gov. Nixon & Rear Admiral McLaughtlin 6 min (A few questions are off-mic and a little hard to hear)

Photo courtesy Grotjan, Full Spectrum Photo

The crash of a bottle of a 2001 vintage Missouri champagne against the steel hull of a new submarine tomorrow morning will officially attach the name of our state to a new Navy warship. [Read more...]