A sad orphan…

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Many people don’t realize the history of the US Navy’s interest in a better riding ship…

Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull (SWATH) designs have actually been around since the 1930s.  But the Navy got interested in the late 60’s and built the RV Kaimalino in conjunction with UH Marine Center in the mid-70s.  It was basically a steel box welded on top of two newly designed underwater hull forms.  It also had a helicopter landing pad on top.  I’ve posted about it before, but it just struck me how sad a shape the ship is in. UH has no money to do any repairs, and have pumped the hulls dry to try to keep the leaking rudder post out of the water…

It wasn’t really designed as anything other than a ‘day cruiser’, with minimal services/billeting/etc on the ship.  At only 27 meters, it’s not a real big ship…

It sits today, tied up at the UH Marine Center, slowly rotting away (well corroding away), a sad relic of the early days of R&D.

A good article on SWATH hull is HERE, from American Scientist in the Nov/Dec 2000 issue.

In many ways this reminds me of a few other ‘orphans’ sitting in various places…

One of the first, if not THE first ROVs sits in a bay at Scripps, and some wag put a paper coffee cup in the mechanical arm with the words “Will work for food” penciled on it.  That ROV is a monster, probably 10X10X10 feet, and constructed out of space hardware, as few knew what impact the pressures of the deep would actually have on mechanical devices. It should be in a museum somewhere, but again, no money and no desire to make that happen…

As technology accelerates from years to months of development, I wonder what will happen (or has already happened) to those ‘original’ prototypes of new tech.  Hell, if you’re a SF reader, you’ve seen Buck Rogers gadgets imagined by Nowlan, Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke and others come to life in our generation.

I remember someone posting an ad from Radio Shack back in the day, and EVERY item on that sale page is now contained in the average smart phone…

As we move ever more quickly into this evolving technology age, sadly American kids don’t want to go into STEM – science, technology, engineering and math curriculums. They are hard work…

This US News report gives some information HERE. But these scholarships go begging…

And those people who ARE at the forefront of tech development aren’t American, they are Asian, Indian, Pakistani, Iranian, etc…

Pretty soon WE (America) will be hostage to the rest of the world in the tech sector…

Comments

A sad orphan… — 12 Comments

  1. Well, they could repurpose that and make it a party barge, a grill and casino, or put it in the middle of the ocean as is with bad criminals, anchored, and then let it sink. Wow. That was mean. 🙂

  2. I think I actually went aboard that vessel in 1974. I was just out of college and was an intern at NOAA. I had to deliver something to someone who was on board her.

    Lots of historical technical things are going to the scrap heap.

  3. The only government backed loans for students should be offered in the hard sciences and nowhere else. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be able to major in liberal arts, ethnic studies or basket weaving, but the government shouldn’t underwrite it.

  4. The SS United States is docked nearby. There’s talk of restoring it, making a museum – I hope so, I’d hate to see it sold for scrap.

  5. STEM classes are indeed difficult. On the other hand, we need more people in the construction, HVAC, electrical and plumbing industries as well.

    BZ

  6. My next million is coming from this bumper sticker:

    “Convenience is going to kill us all.”

  7. Fargo- It’s pretty much gutted… It’s truly a ‘hot box’… sigh

    PE- That they are! And I’m not sure anybody is even keeping pictures or anything else from these pioneering pieces…

    LL- Agreed!

    Mrs.C- I hope so, but they need MILLIONS just to start it…

    BZ- No question! But those tech skills are not being pushed either!!!

    RHT- Sadly, probably true!

  8. Pingback: What I’m Reading…. . | FlaGunBlog

  9. The sad part about education is there are some many useless courses of study.
    Yet they are the ones students sign up for.
    We have lost our technological edge to Asia.
    We put the first man on the moon.
    NASA has started a Muslim outreach whatever that means.

  10. WSF- I can believe that! They live by water over there.

    Ed- Yesterday!

    Rick- Agreed! Sigh.