The U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has placed its famous Sea Shadow stealth ship up for auction. The high-tech military sea vessel cost more than $195 million to develop but its opening bid was for the relatively tiny sum of $50,000, with only a $10,000 deposit required!



The General Services Administration auction is scheduled to end this Thursday, with the current bid (as of 4/30) up to just over $100,000.

Before you start rummaging through the couch cushions for enough spare change, there is one catch...The ship will be dismantled and reduced to scrap before being handed out to the auction's eventual winner!

"The ex-Sea Shadow shall be disposed of by completely dismantling and scrapping within the USA," reads the item's description on the GSA website. "Dismantling is defined as reducing the property such as it has no value except for its basic material content."

Plans of living in a James Bond-esque villains lair have been dashed again! I'm off to eBay to look for hollowed out volcanoes.

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"Too Soon from the Cave, Too Far from the Stars"

Am I the only one aggravated at seeing our tax money going to waste?
Don’t scrap it, I bet we can come up with some good uses:

1. An anti-pirate ship to hang out in the Gulf
2. Rent it out to movie makers
3. A private yacht for the sitting President
4. Roving billboard space for shore-line businesses
5. “Who wants to go fishing! The fish won’t even see us coming!”

Anyone else?

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History shows again and again how nature points up the folly of man

I guess the concern is the technology being reverse engineered. Though I would imagine the stealth tech is pretty much "out there" already.

May also want to make sure someone doesn't try and impersonate a military operation?

I'm grasping straws

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"Too Soon from the Cave, Too Far from the Stars"