aufnord: has any one read "snow crash" by neal stevenson ?

Chris Johnson: Surely Bruce Sterling's Islands in the Net is more relevant.

Well, if we're talking autonomous floating interactive theme parks run by techno art geeks on a large abandoned ship, perhaps The Diamond Age is more relevant?

Funny - what I keep thinking of is "Waterworld".

I can't help but think that 4.5M is just your ante -
operating costs - even just to keep it dockside - are
going to be really something.

What this strikes me as most useful for is a sea-to-orbit
launch platform. Orbital launches are always best done
from the equator anyway - now someone can do that.

Edited by author 05-29-2003 11:36 AM
gilbert: No need to look for jurisdictions with weak laws. Just take it into international waters and you can whatever you damn well please. Of course, you'd need to keep your armaments in working order, since anyone else can do whatever they damn well please too.

But you're still beholden to whoever owns the satellite.

Still, $4.5 mill does seem cheap. Few times in my life have I ever more strongly wished I was really rich. I mean, this thing can do 6,200 nm at 25 knots! And it's named Vengeance!

need more readers.. I could only pitch in like $20

Rusty: Vengeance is a name used on British ships since the mid-18th century when we stole a ship from the French and then used it to kick their arses.
The current HMS Vengeance is a nuclear sub armed with Trident missiles.

Hmmm. The HMS Whup'ass has a nice ring to it...

I'll drop $350 on 1/13,000 of an aircraft carrier. But only if I get 24 hours at the helm once every 35 years.

Then we can create a commune and flotting raft society of tech geeks that floats around the pacific on the ocean currents.

Yeah, you better get my Snowcrash reference. Let's make it a reality!

Doing some math (correct me if you know better)...

At $30/barrel times about 8 barrels per metric ton (varies) times about 4000 tons is just shy of a million dollars to fill'er-up.

Is the tank of the left side or the right I wonder?

How about a skeleton crew to keep it running? Say 20 trained crew at $50k/year equals another million a year (not counting benefits -- perhaps one of them is a doctor?).

Um, oaky. So let's say we keep it dockside then. I have no idea, but I wouldn't be surprised to pay $250-500k per year for dock space and services.

Personally, I'd park it near China Beach, blow torch a few walls to make some room and offer up cheap, secure, fireproof offices or apartments for the nautically inclined.

Put a mall and a food court in the aircraft hangar (don't forget the roller coaster) and throw a grid of solar cells on the deck.

If office space goes over $8/sqft again, we're set. Come on boom II...

I visualize about a dozen of these puppies angled nose down in the desert Cadillac Ranch style.

It would take someone rich, gutsy, and perceptive, like Ted Turner, to do it.

Let's go visit Mark and Carla in the South Pacific!

We'll also start-up a floating movie studio, and
shoot techno-thrillers.


tom
-=W=-

Harnessing the enormous economic clout of Boingers to do something artsy and cool is a great idea, though. Let's pool our money to pay one programmer to fix our most hated open source bug. No, I'm not talking about whacking RMS.

Aha (/m29) How about Carrierhenge, a la carhenge?

http://www.google.com/images?as_q=carhenge

Beautiful!

w00t! Let's get our hands on this Enterprise and I'll start stringing up the raft. WoOooOO Rife would be proud.

Hey You Guys,
  My group here in Hawaii wants to convert the Aircraft Carrier into a floating launch complex. It will service a launch system called LowEO-3, (Low Earth Orbit-3), and represents an automated production capability in zero-G, or micro-gravity environment.
   The vessel in question must be towed to it's location. There is at least one party interested in making a bid to "scrap" her. We have been talking to a broker in Canada who can help get her towed to our site here in Hawaii. If we get any real help, we can do an IPO on this on.
Mahalo, Inventor