#8 of 14

Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier

The aforementioned Iwo Jima might be a pretty impressive ship, but it has nothing on the Nimitz Class carriers. The Navy first started building these bad boys in 1975, but they’re on this list because all ten of them (yup- only 10 were built) are still in very active service. That’s because they each have two nuclear reactors powering them and are expected to be in commission for an average of 60-75 years each. Hmm, I wonder how much it cost to build these guys? Well, reports put each ship at between $4.5 and $6.2 billion. Remember, there are 10 of them. Wait, what’s that, you say? They need to be retooled about 30-40 years into their service life? Well, that’s only about $2.5 billion each to get them out of the shop and running again. Oh, and they have a crew complement of nearly 6,000 sailors? It can’t possibly cost very much to feed 6,000 sailors for 75 years, can it? Or, you know, pay for their cannonballs and such. Wow.