Why the SS United States should matter to you
You can still read the letters along the length of her bow, but they’re browned by rust now.
They popped when she was new; crisp white against a raven black hull. Seventy thousand came out to cheer them when the ship was unveiled at a Virginia drydock. They read, simply: United States.
It’s an audacious thing to name an ocean liner after a great nation. But the SS United States backed it up in every way. When the American passenger ship entered service in 1952, the British magazine Punch grudgingly wrote of her, “After the loud and fantastic claims made in advance for the liner United States, it comes as something of a disappointment to find them all true.”
Indeed, on her first transatlantic voyage the United States, at a length 100 feet greater than the RMS Titanic, beat the previously existing speed record set by the Great Britain’s RMS Queen Mary – by 10 hours. She still holds the transatlantic Blue Riband record, in both directions, 65 years later, having achieved trial speeds as high as 38.32 knots (44 mph) and average speeds across the Atlantic in her maiden voyage of 35.59 knots (40.96 mph).
Today, America’s flagship – the very symbol of American industrial power and innovation once – is motionless, save her rocking in the waves of the Delaware River in Philadelphia where she rusts in dock.
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Here's a link to the SS United States Conservancy's website: http://www.ssusc.org/
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And, you certainly DID have good fortune to have sailed on her! I'm quite jealous!! 
Thank you for those! I missed them the first time!
...and I was 5th rec on one or two of them. 
I was still in my hot dogs or peanut butter sandwich phase.
So true about how she was built for speed AND comfort... and to be a national security asset at a moment's notice. I remember in 1990 during the build up to the Gulf War, there were all sorts of logistical issues with getting troops to Saudi Arabia. At the time, I recall saying to others that we had ONE ship that could do it in 2-3 trips, tops - the SS US! But she had been mothballed for 21 yrs by then, so I guess getting her boilers and engines in shape would've taken too long. And, that was before the asbestos, lifeboat and davits removal in Turkey (in 1995 - in 1984, her furnishings and fittings were auctioned off).
You're correct about the lack of the bulbous bow, which was an interesting design choice in 1950 when William Francis Gibbs was conjuring her up. The SS Normandie, designed 18 yrs before, featured a bulbous bow which gave her an edge in the race for the Blue Ribband. I guess Gibbs wasn't sold on it.
We owe it to our country's namesake to restore her. Everything has become disposable in this country, we need to preserve our history. 
I wish you (or I) could've seen her like that - instead she was so rusted the last time I saw her in Philly.
I built a Revell model of that ship - the glue was tricky (and NO, I was not sniffing it! 
) but it turned out pretty OK. Sure did admire the real thing! 
...that was the week I stopped sniffing glue! 
...to which I strongly disagree. If you mean "honoring the men and women" as in those who built her, what better way than to preserve the end result of their labors? 
I was 7 when I first visited her in Philly. It spurred my interest in history across the board. That interest in history made me VERY acutely aware of politics (for me, it started after my visit in 1972 as a 7 yr old, stuffing envelopes for George McGovern).
Turn the USS Olympia into razor blades because, as a 52 yr old, I needs to SHAVE godammit!
You're not getting it, are you?
P.S. A cash-strapped college student, one from very modest means, sailed on SS US on his way to an Oxford scholarship. He never amounted to much: 
