Minnesota, meet your new submarine

Bob CollinsBob Collins Jul 15, 2008
6

Much is being made of the decision by the Navy to name two new Virginia-class attack submarines the USS Minnesota and the USS North Dakota.

They’re one of us in the same way Rhoda Morganstern and Mary Richards were (are?) one of us.

So let’s learn more about the USS Minnesota.

  • It costs $2.1 billion. How much is 2.1 billion? That’s equivalent to the number of people would attend the Vikings games if they sold out the Metrodome every year for the next 6,120 years.
  • Its maximum diving depth is greater than 800 feet. That’s roughly twice as deep as Lake Superior (clarification: average depth) , the deepest of the Great Lakes.
  • It’s designed to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles with a range of about 1,550 miles, equivalent to driving from St. Paul to Detroit Lakes five times.
  • The sub will be launched in 2014, when children in Minnesota who were born on September 11, 2001 will be entering their freshman year.