The Navy Bet $13 Billion on Electricity Over Steam. Did It Work?

In 2021 the U.S. Navy detonated 40,000 lbs of explosives near its newest carrier. The USS Gerald R. Ford bet on electricity over steam. Here is how it was built, why its catapults and arresting gear fell short of reliability goals, and what its record 326-day deployment proved. Chapters: 0:00 The Blast 0:56 Killing the Steam Catapult 2:22 One Hundred Sixty-Two Pieces of Steel 3:50 First Trap 4:53 The Reliability Crisis 6:29 Energy in a Spinning Rotor 8:58 Back to Steam? 10:56 Magnets in the Magazine, an Island Aft 14:19 The Fight to Skip the Blast 16:15 Baptism by Deployment 16:54 Three Hundred Twenty-Six Days Archive footage and images (sources and licenses, all used under their stated license): DVIDS: 92 items (US Gov PD (DVIDS)) Wikimedia Commons: 92 items (Public domain) Music: "Grieg - Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46 - II. Aase's Death" by Czech National Symphony Orchestra (Musopen) (Public Domain Mark 1.0) https://archive.org/details/musopen-dvd "Grieg - Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46 - IV. In the Hall of the Mountain King" by Czech National Symphony Orchestra (Musopen) (Public Domain Mark 1.0) https://archive.org/details/musopen-dvd "Before the Big Bang" by HoliznaCC0 (CC0 1.0 Universal) https://freemusicarchive.org/music/holizna... "Dangerous Voyage" by HoliznaCC0 (CC0 1.0 Universal) https://freemusicarchive.org/music/holizna... "Ukraine" by HoliznaCC0 (CC0 1.0 Universal) https://freemusicarchive.org/music/holizna... "War Game Commission - Track 1 + 2 + 3" by HoliznaCC0 (CC0 1.0 Universal) https://freemusicarchive.org/music/holizna... Independent channel. Not affiliated with, or endorsed by, any government agency.