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Zulu
Today on "Impossible engineering,"
the world's largest warship.
The aircraft carrier is a moving city
with all of the capabilities of any airfield,
and it can be moved anywhere in the world.
4-1/2 acres of cutting-edge military muscle...
The Ford class has taken a 40-year leap
in the development of aircraft carrier technologies.
...And the pioneering historic innovations...
Man, I love the smell of jet fuel in the morning.
You know what I mean?
Let's go ahead and launch the second.
And you can see that those two flight paths
are naturally de-conflicted.
...That made the impossible
possible.
... Captions by vitac... www.vitac.com
captions paid for by discovery communications
The United States is renowned for its naval might.
It has some of the fastest
and most heavily-armed ships on the planet.
But patrolling the 139 million square-miles of oceans
requires more.
Its airborne units are vital to the Navy's success.
And basing an air force at sea
presents a unique engineering challenge
for people like
chief petty officer Jeremy Stoecklein
and his colleagues.
Those waters need to be patrolled,
need to be protected for American interests.
The forefront of military might
has really become naval aviation,
and it's very, very important
to transfer that power anywhere in the world.
The U.S. Navy requires a new breed of ship
capable of transporting more planes than ever before.
As we move into the 21st century,
there becomes a new need...
A new need for technology,
a new way to combat the forces around the world,
and to help out with humanitarian efforts
around the world.
The United States Navy needs something
brand new in technology to help those aids.
The solution...
...the Ford-class aircraft carrier.
Ford-class carrier is the largest warship ever built.
It's about 1,100 feet long,
weights about 100,000 tons,
it's about 24 stories tall.
Its scale is unheard of.
It's 35-knot top speed makes it pound-for-pound
the fastest carrier ever built,
and it's on the brink of making history.
The first of the colossal class, the Gerald R. Ford,
has just been delivered to the U.S. Navy
and is undergoing vital sea trials
to find out what it's capable of.
This ship can carry aircraft and technologies
that are out today,
as well as that we haven't even dreamt of yet.
This is the most impressive ship I've ever served aboard.
In dry dock in Newport news, Virginia,
Geoff Hummel and a team of engineers
are building the second
of this 10-strong fleet of carriers...
The John F. Kennedy.
We've been working on it for about three years,
and we got about another year and a half in the dry dock,
and then after that, we'll spend about two years of testing it
before we deliver it.
Mike Butler heads up construction
of these trailblazing ships.
Well, an aircraft carrier has to satisfy two major roles...
One is a humanitarian role,
and one is a defensive or offensive military role.
This ship does both and does it very well.
The largest warship ever built,
the Ford-class carrier is almost as long
as the empire state building is tall.
35 aircraft are stored in a giant hangar.
Three super-sized elevators deliver the planes
to an 1,100-foot-long flight deck.
Equipped with an electromagnetic catapult system
capable of launching planes faster than ever before.
The amount of technology that's been infused into this ship
is gonna put the Navy in a position
to fight the wars of the 21st century.
It's gonna be the most capable ship out there in the fleet.
But creating the world's largest mobile air base
poses many challenges.
How do you power a 110,000 ton vessel
with 4,500 crew members?
What we do is, live everyday lives.
So, washing laundry,
serving 20,000 meals a day.
So, it's like powering, essentially, a small city.
How is it possible to get jets airborne
in just a fraction of a normal runway?
The greatest challenge is to be able to get the aircraft
to the speed that it needs in order to take off.
And how can you bring them home safely?
Landing on a carrier requires an external means
of stopping the aircraft.
But the engineers face an even bigger problem.
The Ford class holds more planes
than any carrier before it.
They must be able to launch and recover
an astonishing 200 missions a day.
So, how do you achieve that on a ship?
Engineer Marco Estrada is facing that challenge.
Typically, an aircraft carrier
of the Ford class will hold approximately 78, 79 aircraft.
The job of managing the flight deck
is an organized chaos.
We have launches, you got recoveries,
you got fueling,
you got weapons at the same time.
So, it's a very challenging operation.
To achieve their unprecedented mission rate,
some aircraft must be able to land
at the same time that others are taking off.
It's an impossible problem that was faced
by the innovators of the past.
U.S. Navy pilot lieutenant Leslie Garcia
is a fast jet specialist,
well aware of the huge problems
of launching and landing on an aircraft carrier.
It is not uncommon to have over 20 aircraft launch
right before 20 aircraft are recovering
during the same open-deck time.
To simulate the straight deck's limitations,
lieutenant Garcia is handing over the flying
to a model plane club.
So, right now, we're putting down the center line
of the straight deck carrier.
I didn't know I was gonna get a workout
while I was out here, too.
The historic straight-deck design
is ready for takeoff,
but how will it cope?
They're gonna go airborne, execute their mission,
and then look to come in and land.
As the mission gathers pace,
landing simultaneously is impossible.
Now we've got the next cycle of pilots
getting ready to take off while the first cycle
that we launched are still airborne
and waiting for the opportunity to come land.
So, as you can see,
they're, basically, fouling the whole flight deck.
It's a very inefficient process.
But in the 1950s,
aircraft-carrier design was turned on its head.
Now a floating museum in San Diego,
the U.S.S. Midway
was one of the first American carriers
to be fitted with a game-changing solution...
The angled deck.
It was the brainchild of British
royal Navy captain Dennis Cambell
and engineer Lewis Boddington.
They supplemented the traditional straight deck
with a second runway.
The plane's landing area was now separated at the ship's waist
while launch catapults were safely positioned
at the front of the ship.
When this was a straight deck,
you would, basically, just see one landing area
straight up and down the ship,
with taxiing and launching aircraft
towards the bow of the ship,
landing aircraft towards the back.
Really, the game was changed
when we went over to the angled flight deck.
It became so much more efficient,
and, more importantly, so much safer.
The midway's remarkable refit
allowed her planes to take off and land at the same time.
The landing aircraft are gonna be offset
so that if they need to take back off,
if they missed a wire,
they will have the angled deck
that is going to keep them away
from the launching aircraft that are launching straight ahead.
So, will adding an angled deck
bring some order to today's mission?
As you can see, we've got one taking off.
He's gonna come around and start executing touch-and-goes
while we launch the other aircraft.
As on the midway,
Cambell and Boddington's addition
transforms this airstrip into a well-oiled machine.
He's approaching on his landing.
Let's go ahead and launch the second.
And you can see that those two flight paths
are naturally deconflicted because of the angle
that landing aircraft is coming in on.
And we're basically getting two landing strips
for the price of one.
The U.S. Navy's ultra-modern Ford class
is also equipped with an angled deck.
But whereas midway launched just 89 sorties a day,
the Ford class can complete over 200.
When you look at the flight deck as a whole,
4-1/2 acres seems large,
but as you add 50 fighter aircraft
and around 100 to 150 personnel at all times
performing their various tasks,
it gets very, very small very quickly.
The ballet of us doing our job they call "controlled chaos,"
and that's really what it is.
400 yards!
The Cambell- and-Boddington-inspired
angled flight deck enables the Ford class
to complete 25% more sorties a day
than the U.S. Navy's previous carrier class.
The angled flight deck is a major feat
in engineering in itself.
With that angled flight deck, we have a living airport
that is receiving aircraft at the same time
it is launching aircraft, simultaneously.
With the second in class, the John F. Kennedy,
under construction, it's up to engineer Marco
to deliver the Ford class's next awesome angled deck.
Currently, we are at the 01 level of the ship.
So, there is gonna be a couple more levels going up
where the flight deck's going to be.
So, currently, we're a little lower than the flight deck.
But once the flight deck is installed,
we should see the angled deck in this direction,
the island structure should be in that direction.
And that, in itself, is a major innovation.
So, just how did moving the island in relation
to the rest of the flight deck
change aircraft-carrier design forever?
The cutting edge Ford-class aircraft carrier,
a study in naval innovation and a dramatic improvement
on flight-deck efficiency and safety.
It differs from its predecessors
in a number of ways.
For example, the position of the island
is radically different from all previous designs
of U.S. aircraft carriers.
This is one of the keys to the class's
extraordinary capacity to launch
and recover aircraft at the same time.
On Ford class, the island structure
was moved from this area
to an area closer to the stern of the ship.
That allows more of the parking of the aircraft forward
of the island structure,
which allows the Navy operators
to turn around the aircraft faster.
Fuel, service, weapons loading,
in turn, generates more sorties.
At this point in time, this aircraft carrier design
is the pinnacle of flight operations support
for the U.S. Navy.
The relocated island also has a smaller footprint
than its predecessors,
creating an extra usable deck space.
Beneath the runways,
aircraft are stored in a giant hangar,
delivered to the flight deck
by 82-foot-long electromechanical elevators.
Positioned on the sides of the ship,
any craft can be maneuvered
without disrupting launch or recovery.
What you're looking at is what we call ace 3,
or aircraft elevator number 3,
which is right here on the port side of the ship.
And the elevator is up right now, as you can see,
but as you look on these slots, this is what actually slides
our aircraft elevators down to the hangar bay,
and how we move our aircraft in and out
for maintenance and operations
and then move it back up to the flight deck
and taxi them off.
The Ford class is undoubtedly taking
aircraft deployment to a whole new level.
But the engineers face another almighty problem...
Powering this giant carrier,
and it is giant.
The aircraft carrier is a moving base.
It is a moving city.
So, we have a mobile city, a mobile airstrip,
with all of the capabilities of any airfield,
and it can be moved anywhere in the world.
As tall as a giant sequoia,
longer than 60 New York cabs,
and almost the width of an airbus A380,
it can hold up to 75 aircraft and accommodate 4,500 crew.
In the dry dock, the second of this brand-new class,
the John F. Kennedy, is currently being assembled.
Construction director Geoff Hummel
is supervising part of the mammoth build.
When we're done
building her, we'll deliver a ship
of a little over 80,000 tons of displacement.
When the Navy actually loads it up with crew and planes
and supplies, it'll be close to 100,000 tons going to sea.
It will take more than 3.9 million pounds
of welded metal to complete this ship.
Construction on this scale
creates huge logistical challenges.
The solution is to build the Kennedy
in a series of massive sections,
known as super lifts.
Right behind us is what we call the lower bow super lift.
It's about 60 feet tall, a little over 100 feet long.
It's made up of seven units that were built
in our steels shops, brought over here,
and joined into one giant super lift.
And then if you look over, just aft of it,
what you'll see is the beginnings
of what we'll call the upper bow.
You can actually see the leading edge of flight deck
there with that rolled shape.
That's actually gonna be the very bow of the ship.
These mega-structures are only possible
because of a staggering piece of engineering...
One of the largest cranes in the world.
Behind me here is what we call our 1,050-ton crane.
Other people affectionately know it as "big blue."
This crane is rated for 1,050 metric tons.
It's a very capable crane.
The crane has two rails running what we call east and west,
towards and away from the river.
It spans about 540 feet between the rails,
and it's about 230 feet tall.
When you're maneuvering 1,100-ton steel sections,
there's no room for error.
Big blue's three hoists allow pinpoint precision.
With this crane, you're actually making one move
with all three hoists being synchronized.
It's got some pretty good precision,
as far as how accurately
we can place the unit, or move the unit,
to get it within an inch or less.
And then we can actually use some Jacks
to position the unit exactly where we want it.
It's just cool, man.
But once at sea, the Ford class's sheer scale
poses another enormous problem.
As their missions will last for months at a time,
propelling a ship of this size
with traditional thirsty combustion engines
is out of the question.
Not only that, the power needs to satisfy
the demands of over 4,500 crew.
A new power source is needed.
Can the innovators of the past
shed any light on the problem?
Cartagena in southeast Spain
could harbor a solution for the Ford class.
Former Spanish submariner Diego Quevedo
is visiting the historic naval base
of a nation that once ruled the waves.
By the 1800s,
the might of the Spanish Navy may have faded away,
but in 1888,
a new breed of maritime engineering surfaced.
The world's first
fully-functioning military submersible,
the 72-foot long peral changed the face of warfare.
But the Spanish engineers had the same problem
as the one facing the Ford class...
How to power the peral
on long missions through the world's oceans.
However, a combustion engine's toxic fumes
would be deadly in this air-tight steel tube.
So, how did the Spanish Navy power the peral,
and how can the answer help
to drive the greatest warship ever built?
The peral submarine was the first submersible vessel
of its kind in history,
and the Spanish Navy needed a way to power it
without the toxic fumes of a traditional combustion engine.
The submarine's designer,
naval engineer Isaac peral had an ingenious answer.
To create sustainable power beneath the waves,
he turned to electricity.
And today, Diego Quevedo
has special access to the heart of the solution.
The peral was lined with 33 tons' worth
of rechargeable lead-acid batteries.
Their first job...
To propel its sleek structure through the depths.
Virtually every system on board was also battery-powered,
making this the world's first truly self-sufficient sub,
cementing peral's contribution to marine power.
The peral's batteries allowed it
to cruise underwater for a few hours
with a range of 132 nautical miles,
but the Ford class' power source can keep it at sea
for months at a time without refueling.
Building on modern submarine technology,
the solution is a pair
of state-of-the-art nuclear reactors.
One of the major advantages
to having nuclear power is an engineering feat
of actually getting 100,000 tons of displacement
with the aircraft carrier through the water
at about 35-plus knots.
We are able to have 4.5 acres of sovereign American soil
anywhere in the world for up to 25 years
at a time under nuclear power.
The nuclear reactor split uranium, producing heat,
which converts water to steam, powering four turbines.
These rotate four propeller shafts to drive
the 1,100-foot-long carrier.
But the reactor's output is so immense
they can also produce huge amounts of electricity.
Unlike any carrier before it,
virtually everything on the trailblazing Ford class
is powered by electricity.
USS Gerald R. Ford carries a load
of 13.8 thousand kilovolts of amperage.
So you're looking at three times the amount of electrical load
that the aircraft carriers before us have ever had,
and that allows us for some of the new technology
that we have on board.
And over 9.8 million feet of electrical cabling
also provide energy for the 4,500 crew on board.
The USS Gerald R. Ford is a floating city,
so we have every service that a civilian counterpart
or an actual township that you might live in might have.
We have a post office, we have gyms,
we have a coffee shop, we have laundry service.
We have that on board so that we can sustain ourselves out
for long periods of time and really be effective.
But the civilian services are not the ship's main attraction.
It is, after all, a warship.
This brand-new carrier class has 17 decks.
Its colossal flight deck stretches to five acres.
It boasts supersized engineering
designed to deploy more aircraft missions
than ever before in any part of the world.
The first of this game-changing fleet
has only recently been commissioned into the us Navy.
USS Gerald R. Ford is setting the standard and setting the baR
on the way that aircraft carriers around the world
and the way that naval operations are gonna be
dealt with and sustained.
10 record-breaking carriers
will eventually make up the Ford class.
The second of which, the John F. Kennedy,
is currently being assembled.
When completed, it will be well over 950 feet long,
but its runway will only be
around 1/7 of a normal runway's length.
Launching aircraft in this distance
poses a huge problem for engineer Gabe Sava.
The runway on this carrier is gonna be just under 350 feet.
So the greatest challenge
involved in launching an aircraft from a carrier
is that you only have a fraction of the runway
that an aircraft typically would need in order to take off.
To get the aircraft to the adequate speed,
we have to use a system of launching,
which is a catapult system that propels
and accelerates the aircraft so that it can take off.
To date, launch catapults have been steam-driven,
but these systems lack acceleration control
and would rip apart the Ford class' lighter aircraft
such as unmanned drones.
Steam-powered catapults, by their very nature,
can put a lot of loads or stress on the aircraft.
In addition, steam catapults require a lot of maintenance.
There's a lot of corrosion within the troughs
because there's a lot of moisture.
Engineers needed a way to get aircraft up to speed
while also protecting their structural integrity
and that of the launching apparatus.
To do so, they would have to turn
to the innovators of the past.
On the U.S. Navy's most advanced warship ever,
traditional ship-to-air
launch techniques weren't going to cut it.
The team behind this monster vessel
needed a way to get aircraft up to launch speed
with about 1/7 of the traditional runway.
The Ford class' engineers
proposed a groundbreaking solution...
Catapult power generated by electromagnetics.
Petty officer Daniel Rivera is part of the launch team
involved in the initial testing.
We have to perform what's called dead-load testing.
A dead load is, essentially, a big piece of metal on wheels
that represents different aircraft weights.
And pretty much, we were on the flight deck,
and we launch each dead load.
The dead loads will go actually off the boat.
They will take off and fly over into the James river.
Concealed below the catapult's shuttle and rails,
the electromagnetic aircraft-launch system,
known as Emals,
uses the ship's power to create an enormous electrical charge.
The system uses 13,800 kilovolts
that's being generated from the ship
in order to power the equipment,
and with that energy, we're able to launch an aircraft zero
to about 150 miles per hour in just under 3 seconds.
With the plane on 100% throttle, this huge shot of electricity
is released into a series of electromagnets
positioned down two launch rails.
A powerful magnetic wave propels
the attached plane off the runway.
With Emals, the power that we produce during each aircraft
launch is a lot more controlled.
So, for that reason,
we can be able to launch a wider range of aircraft.
Using computer software
while the catapult is going down the track,
it knows how much power is needed
in order to get that aircraft off the deck.
But sometimes even the mighty Emals catapult
isn't enough to get the jets off the deck.
Chief petty officer Jeremy Stoecklein has experienced
this potentially dangerous situation firsthand.
There are times that we're out in the middle of the ocean,
depending on weather, depending on what the aircraft
needs to be loaded down with,
sometimes that aircraft doesn't have enough power
on 100% throttle to reach that minimum air speed,
and sometimes we need just a little bit extra.
For the engineers,
this is a problem that could end in disaster.
If the aircraft didn't have enough power,
it could be very catastrophic,
because the aircraft could end up going into the water
and not taking off at all.
So how can these phenomenal gets produce more power?
It's a challenge that's been faced in the past.
Engineer Dan Dickrell is at the Patuxent river
naval air base in Maryland,
the site of an extraordinary innovation
that could provide a solution for the Ford class.
This is a t-38 Talon.
It's a two-seat trainer.
It's powered by two general electric J85 engines.
Top speed's over 1,200 miles per hour,
which is supersonic, faster than the speed of sound.
Today, the t-38 is entering the hush house,
a secretive test facility where engineers can see
how jet engines perform up close.
All right, so the T-38's tied down.
The test is about to begin.
Let's do it.
With special clearance just feet from the engine,
Dan is witnessing a test that will reveal one of the keys
to a successful aircraft-carrier launch.
Here we go. Test is beginning.
Pretty excited.
You can hear it fueling up.
This incredible sight is created
by what's known as an afterburner.
It's the secret to producing the thrust required
by the Ford class' jets.
It was invented over 85 years ago by sir frank whittle,
one of the forefathers of the aircraft engine.
A meteor jet plane is ready for an unofficial approach
to the sound barrier.
During the 1940s, the race was on,
not only to break the sound barrier,
but also to reach 1,000 miles per hour.
Jet engines needed more power,
but making them bigger was out of the question.
So whittle devised his radical solution, the afterburner.
See, it's right here on the back of the engine.
It vastly increases the amount of thrust
that's available to the engine
without adding much weight or complexity to the engine itself.
With minimal adjustments, whittle figured out how to
dramatically outperform the standard jet engine,
and his ingenious modification holds the key
to getting aircraft from the deck
of a Ford-class aircraft carrier to the skies.
When engineers behind the Ford-class aircraft carrier
needed to get aircraft from deck to air
using about 1/7 of the runway space,
the answer was thrust, and they turned to sir frank
whittle's historic innovation to provide it.
A standard jet engine takes air in, adds fuel,
and ignites the mixture, propelling the aircraft forward.
Whittle realized much of the oxygen was unused,
so he added more fuel at the rear of the engine
to utilize it.
This creates a massive amount of extra thrust.
When you're designing something,
the simpler is usually the better,
and whittle's solution is amazingly simple
yet its performance increase is brilliant.
To fully appreciate the afterburn experience,
and air-force veteran, bud green,
is reacquainting himself with the f-100,
the first us jet to fly supersonic.
Zero to 62 miles per hour takes just seconds.
Oh.
At top speed, it smashes through the sound barrier.
Courtesy of a staggering piece of engineering.
We were going about 320 or something like that when he lit it,
and you can really feel the kick.
Just, all of a sudden, you've got a whole bunch
of additional thrust,
and it just knocks you on the rear end.
It was fun.
Does really kick.
Unbelievable.
Whittle's afterburner concept changed the game
for Ford class' jets.
The ability of the aircraft to have this afterburner option
increases our flexibility
and allows us to go up in weight with that extra boost of energy
that will allow us to reach that minimum air speed
so we can carry more ordinance, more fuel,
anything that we need to complete our mission.
Launching over 200 jets a day
is an incredible feat of engineering,
but it's only half the story.
Bringing them home is even harder.
Landing an aircraft is definitely
one of the most dangerous activities
that you do on the flight deck.
Somehow, the jets have to stop
in just 1/7 of a normal runway's length
or they'll end up in the water.
Can a bold pioneer from the past provide a solution
to this seemingly impossible challenge?
It may be hard to believe,
but this beautiful biplane could hold the key
to landing on the Ford-class carriers.
Engineer Dan Dickrell is in Virginia, discovering how.
So, that motorless airplane that just took off
is the Ely Curtiss pusher.
Even though that's a replica, it was built in 1910,
and it first flew in 1911.
The Curtiss pusher is unique
because it was the first plane to take off from a warship,
but American Eugene Ely wasn't satisfied.
He also wanted to land his plane on a ship.
However, he only had 120 feet to work with,
a problem demonstrated as today's flight draws to a close.
When the biplane landed,
it first touched down right about here,
and it coasted to a stop.
I'm gonna pace it off and see how far it took
to come to a complete stop.
If this plane was landing on Ely's ship,
anything over 120 feet would've ended in disaster.
All right, here. Hey, boom, how's it going?
- How you doing? - Terrific. How much was it?
It was 275 feet.
Ugh. It would've smacked probably
right into the superstructure of the ship in that case,
or over the side if there wasn't a superstructure.
But Ely had the help of engineer Hugh Robinson,
who came up with an idea to bring his aircraft
safely to a halt.
It's a solution that could help the Ford class.
Robinson came up with arresting gear.
This was a system that was designed
to bring the plane to a stop.
It was a little more than rope and sandbags.
Robinson tied the rope between the sandbags
across the ship's deck.
The plan was to transfer the landing plane's momentum
into the heavy bags by adding a tailhook
that would snag the rope as the plane passed over it.
And in 1911, this simple solution brought
Ely's plane safely to a standstill in just 30 feet
on board the converted warship.
That particular innovation was the example
that landing aircraft on ships was possible.
It really paved the way for what we see today.
Now the Ford class' engineers
are adapting Robinson's ingenious concept.
But at 65 times heavier and 4 times faster,
their jets will require more than rope and sandbags.
The team behind the Ford class will have to supersize
the innovative concept of arresting gear
to bring the carrier's Navy aircraft
safely back down to earth.
With little deck space to land on,
the engineers designing the Ford-class aircraft carrier
needed a way to stop descending aircraft in their tracks.
The solution is a cutting-edge system
known as advanced arresting gear.
The current advanced-arresting-gear system
on the Ford can arrest aircraft up to 50,000 pounds.
In order to do this, it has to have precise controls
so that you don't overstress the aircraft.
As the aircraft approaches,
it picks up the pendant off the deck.
The cable tension then goes through a cable shock absorber.
The shock absorber takes out the wave in the cable.
It's kind of like car shocks.
Then the braking power is provided by a water twister.
Situated below deck,
the water twister is a paddle wheel submerged in fluid.
Its rotation provides frictional resistance,
absorbing around 2/3 of the landing's energy.
The remainder of the arrestment is controlled precisely
by a motor generator that takes that kinetic energy
and turns it into electrical energy
that is then stored for later uses on AAG.
The advanced arresting gear is also incredibly adaptable.
During a two-second landing, computer controls continually
adjust the gear according to the aircraft's weight.
In other words, I can arrest lighter aircraft
than I would've been able to with my old system
or heavier aircraft
because I have the ability to actively control the arrestment.
This system also actively compensates for the aircraft
being potentially off-center or off-target,
and it is able to control the payout of cable
in order to reduce the amount of stress on the aircraft
and land it safely.
Brilliant engineering is taking another of history's
inspired innovations into the 21st century.
For those who serve on board, the Ford class is undoubtedly
taking aircraft-carrier design to new heights.
The fact that a 17-deck, 4.5-acre,
100,000-ton in-weight ship
can be in service for 50 years is just an incredible thought.
Through the extraordinary efforts
of its designers and crew,
this ambitious class is changing the face of marine engineering.
For me, it's a tremendous honor to be part of the team
coming together to put together this great Navy ship.
By building on the work of the pioneers of the past,
upscaling, and making their own discoveries,
the engineers are succeeding
in making the impossible possible.
Where we go from here... Really, the sky's the limit,
And I think USS Gerald R. Ford shows
that impossible engineering is not so impossible.
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