Final voyage: Navy pays one cent to scrap aircraft carrier

The USS Ranger's last voyage will cost the Navy a penny -- and one of its most legendary aircraft carriers.

The Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) has paid one red cent to transport and break apart a third super carrier -- USS Ranger (CV-61) -- after once again finding no takers willing to turn it into a museum docked in the Pacific Northwest. The aircraft carrier -- which was featured in the movie "Top Gun" -- will embark on its final voyage in early 2015 to International Shipbreaking’s facility in Brownsville, Texas.

“Under the contract, the company will be paid $0.01. The price reflects the net price proposed by International Shipbreaking, which considered the estimated proceeds from the sale of the scrap metal to be generated from dismantling," officials for NAVSEA said in a statement released on Monday. "[One cent] is the lowest price the Navy could possibly have paid the contractor for towing and dismantling the ship."

The Ranger has been docked in Bremerton, Wash., for the past eight years in the hopes that veterans’ and historical societies could raise funds to have it sent to Oregon to become a museum on the shores of the Columbia River in the vein of The Intrepid Museum in New York City.