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

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

Beautiful!

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

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

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.

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=-

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.

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...

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!

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.

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

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.

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

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!

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.

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?

So if 13,000 regulars all chipped in, how many of them could be on the aircraft carrier before the ship would (a) get rather crowded

Well, the page says the normal compliment is 1300. So 10% for normal crew load. Figure you could easily go up to 2 or 3 times that for a few hours party.

(b) sink? Assuming 10 people are 1 ton, 13000 people are 1300 tons. Not a problem under normal load.

Ahoy - Just time-share it matey, time-share.

So if 13,000 regulars all chipped in, how many of them could be on the aircraft carrier before the ship would (a) get rather crowded, and (b) sink?

Seriously, this thing sounds doably doable, I'm in for 346 U.S. Bucks if that sets me offa this braindead ATT broadband or Comcast or whatever the hell it will be in the next few months.

I've got a better idea; we all chip in, get a satellite downlink, and become a massive floating hosting service! Beholden to no one! Like Sealand, only able to move to whatever jurisdiction has the weakest group of laws at the time. And stage outdoor lan parties - you can put a lot of seasick geeks on that flight deck.

Plus, we could - as already pointed out - walk around going "Arrrr!" without feeling goofy. I mean, we'd be on a ship; it would be appropriate.

Kenny - where will you find 13,000 parrots?

I think the GOP should buy the carrier and fix it up in manner suitable for a presidential campaign. Bush can campaign from it in 2004. (It's got to be secure, right?, it's a fucking aircraft carrier.)

After the campaign, a sleep over on the Vengeance will become a GOP Team Leader (the GOP's brillant personalized spaming scam) benefit. Kind of like the Lincoln bedroom but more like a giant locker room that sleeps 1500. If you are a committed Team Leader, you might get a sleep over _and_ a deck landing with a National Guard pilot.

It's cheaper and more durable than an inauguration. You can operate it in international waters to avoid taxes and the EPA. And given the gear it comes with, it's probably an off the shelf datahaven.

$4.5 mil what a steal! We could rent it out to Hollywood producers as a movie prop and maybe make enough $ to take her for a spin. OR if we could get some fighter jets we'd have our own mobil theme park. "Top Gun"- amenities include: Top Gun instruction, fly a real military jet, cramped rooms, meals.... plus stop by our gift shop and Pirate Bar! (just for kicks)...Also available for theme weddings, events, and raves.

I could see this being purchased by a Hollywood studio and used for a specific production, or a number of productions. Fox is probably the best film studio candidate to buy this, since they have well-equipped studio facilities throughout the world that are situated near shipping ports (in Mexico and Australia).

*adjusts eyepatch*

Perfect. Burning Man is gonna need place to go when they get kicked out of Black Rock.

Edited by author 05-29-2003 12:37 AM
aufnord: has any one read "snow crash" by neal stevenson ?

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

I can kick in my share for the boat, but I don't think I can afford to put gas in the tank.

Oh yeah, money... My first reaction is we could be pirates, but on second thought we should take the suggestions Cory had for Disney and use them as a business model "Be like Walt: rebuild Imagineering as an interdisciplinary skunk-works that creates brand-new, amazing, one-off stuff that builds your brand." The ship will be retro-fitted into a cross between burning man and a nomadic epcot of the bitchun society.
Also ala Mark we could tiki out the whole rig and be big nerd kahunas and cartoon Gaugins.

Edited by author 05-29-2003 12:17 AM
travel the south pacific in style :D and overwhelming military domination!

ahoy thar matey :D ARGH!

Maintenance on that bad boy would cost you a coupla hundred thou a year, minimum. And that's just to keep it from falling to bits. If you actually wanted to take it out for a stroll, you'd be talking real money.

But say you just wanted to dock it someplace and rent it out to tour the and banquet crowd. If you fixed it up nice and pretty, you might be able to just keep financially afloat. Even that would be tough outside a very major market.

Now if you could somehow get it to Vegas....

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

Fuck Yeah! I say let's buy it and sail around the south Pacific with Mark. We could rig up some kind of ultra wideband satellite internet uplink and be a floating geek/creative autonomous zone.