Long term viability of the USA's warship museum ships?

As the Boomers now increasingly expire I expect much of the large USN WW2 museum fleet will be at risk of scrapping. Can the museum business of the 2040s and 50s sustain ALL four Iowa class battleships, plus the battleships North Carolina, Massachusetts, Alabama and Texas? Or four Essex class aircraft carriers plus the carrier Midway? And eighteen Balao and Gato class submarine museums? That just seems like a lot of repetition. By the time the White House, Congress and the Governor's mansions across the land are populated by Gen Z (those born 1997 to 2012) these WW2 museum ships may seem as important as many see USS Olympia (flagship from 1898 Spanish-American War) today - left to rot as a relic of a now forgotten war.

Here in Canada we have two WW2 warship museums in the water, HMCS Haida and Sackville (plus some beached Oberon SSKs). That's probably all we have the financial stomach for - though I feel for the West Coast's absence of any RCN museum ships.

Beautiful shot of the corvette.

The USS Constitution, like HMS Victory,is still serving after 210 years… I suspect that at least one of each class of museum ship will survive.
It will take large fortunes to maintain any of them, but such fortunes are difficult to predict.

MarkS said:

The USS Constitution, like HMS Victory,is still serving after 210 years… I suspect that at least one of each class of museum ship will survive.
It will take large fortunes to maintain any of them, but such fortunes are difficult to predict.

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Texas has the advantage of being a state-funded museum ship and of having those contrary Texicans enjoying having their own battleship (there is still fiction being written that has ex-BB-35 being brought back into service for various reasons).

As for the carrier museums - I can see Intrepid surviving due to being in NYC with its major USN history and massive population, and likewise Midway being in a Navy town (San Diego and having the Southern California population to support it.

Lexington in deep south Texas is in a smaller-population area, but still seems well-supported (at least when I visited in 2011).

The carriers I see being "iffy' are Hornet in Concord, CA with the anti-military San Francisco population and its run-down location (last I heard they were just hanging on) and Yorktown in Charleston SC. She seems to be doing fairly well for now, but her sister museum ships in the same museum group have had significant maintenance issues due to neglect.

I'm not that up-to-date on the 6 modern battleship museums.

The USS Alabama, Battleship Park, stays busy due to warmer winters, lots of airplanes, and a submarine exhibit.

GreenKnight121 said:

[...] and Yorktown in Charleston SC. [...]

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I forgot about Yorktown. She will be added to my trip list for his upcoming spring.