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A former coworker was stationed on the Enterprise. It had 8 nuclear reactors and apparently it's top speed was classified. Newer aircraft carriers only have 3 reactors.
Newer aircraft carriers only have 3 reactors.
The information I could find on Wikipedia is that USS Nimitz and USS Gerald Ford both have 2 reactors (each 550 MW and 700 MW, respectively). The USS Enerprise had 8 reactors with 150 MW each. So their total power was in the same range while each being much smaller.
The maximum powers used for propulsion are 210 MW (Enterprise), 208 MW (Nimitz), and 260 MW (Ford).
OK, cool.
Also, this is the prior Enterprise, from WW2.
This is CV-6, not CVN-65 which was the next version built a few years later. N means the next version was nuclear (in fact it was the first nuclear carrier). This one wasn’t nuclear.
That's a lotta hot rocks!
Of all the museum carriers we kept, Enterpriseshould have been it instead. Such a shame
this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2026
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