Freedom Ship

Freedom Ship
Logo of Freedom Ship International
General information
Type	Mixed use (casino, education, hotel, office and residential)
Location	Palm Harbor, Florida, United States
Coordinates	28°5′2″N 82°45′14″W / 28.08389°N 82.75389°W / 28.08389; -82.75389
Height
Roof	106.7 m (350 ft)
Technical details
Size	1,371 meters long
Floor count	25
Design and construction
Architect	Freedom Ship International
Other information
Seating capacity	33,000 units (18,000 living units, 3,000 commercial units, 2,400 time-share units and 10,000 hotel units)

Freedom Ship was a floating city project initially proposed in the late 1990s.^[1] It was so named because of the "free" international lifestyle facilitated by a mobile ocean colony, though the project would not have been a conventional ship, but rather a series of linked barges.

The Freedom Ship project envisioned a 1,317m (0.818 miles)-long integrated city^[2] with condominium housing for 50,000 people,^[2] an airstrip to accommodate turboprop aircraft, duty-free shopping and other facilities, large enough to require rapid transit. The complex would circumnavigate the globe continuously, stopping regularly at ports of call.^[3]

Technology

The project proposed it as the longest and hugest floating ship ever seen, with an airport for aircraft take-off and landing on its flat top. The ship would be presented like a floating city. Due to the stresses of hogging and sagging, conventional shipbuilding would be inadequate for a floating complex 1400 m in length. The developers have stated that they will use a segmented barge-building technique, giving the hull flexibility and allowing incremental expansion. The ship would have been 1,371 m (4,498 ft) long and had 33,000 accommodation units: 18,000 living units, 3,000 commercial units, 2,400 time-share units and 10,000 hotel units.

Construction

Despite early press coverage on NPR's Weekend Edition and Discovery Channel's Extreme Engineering, the project has seen few recent developments. Although the initially stated in-service date was to be 2001, no construction had begun as of November 2011.^{[citation needed]}

Freedom Ship International initially estimated the net cost for construction to be USD 6 billion in 1999. However, by 2002, estimates had risen to USD 11 billion.^[3] The latest update to the corporation's website, in July 2008, was a press release explaining the difficulty of obtaining reliable financial backing, and as of 2008^[update] Freedom Ship International has not released the names of any major sponsors.^{[citation needed]}

A side view of the proposed Freedom Ship. The largest ship built in the world, the Seawise Giant, was approximately one third of this length.

Similar projects

Other projects, such as the ResidenSea, have similarly attempted to create mobile communities, though they have conservatively limited themselves to the constraints of conventional shipbuilding. In regards to the economic flexibility and "freedom" created by such mobile settlements, these projects could be considered a realization of the avante-garde Walking City concept from 1964, by British architect Ron Herron of the group Archigram.

Seasteading, a concept applying homesteading to the ocean, is a related process.

Citations

1. ^ Robert Trigaux, "Water World", sfgate.com, from St. Petersburg Times, Jul. 5, 1999.
2. ^ ^{a b} Floating Cities at How Stuff Works; a discussion of floating cities using Freedom Ship as its example
3. ^ ^{a b} "Floating City". NPR Weekend Edition. 13 April 2002. http://www.npr.org/programs/wesat/features/2002/apr/freedomship/. 

External links

• Official website
• Collected Critical Comments on the Freedom Ship project by Patri Friedman of the Seasteading Institute
• "Floating Utopias", a critical look at the project and associated utopian schemes by China Miéville for In These Times
• Floating Cities, Islands and States A paper written by Alexander Bolonkin from a physics perspective using Freedom Ship as an example and providing technical information
• Discovery Channel documentary