The new $13 billion USS Enterprise (CVN-80), the ninth U.S. Navy ship to carry the legendary name that stretches from the Revolutionary War through WWII’s most decorated warship (CV-6, the “Big E”) and the pioneering nuclear-powered CVN-65, is being built as a Gerald R. Ford-class supercarrier by literally melting down and recycling 35,000 pounds of steel from the dismantled old Enterprise into its hull—a poetic act of physical rebirth.