AMW sends us this video making it clear that cities on the sea are possible – they are being built every day. Like Royal Caribbean’s new ship – the biggest cruise ship ever:
Looks like a nice place to live – although a bit on the expensive side.
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Brilliant PR, epic ship. The size of these things makes me wonder if there is a chance of a nuclear powered one some day. This one apparently will have eight 17,5MW diesel generators… Alas, probably not feasible politically (and therefore economically) for a while yet.
The park is a nice touch. I wonder if there is some inspiration from Vernor Vinge here, who has written about a park being the “heart” of an interstellar starship…
Excellent name too, Oasis Of The Seas. Sounds very inviting.
To date there have been only 4 nuclear powered non-military ships. The first, N/V Savannah was a commercial failure and that was back when everyone thought that we’d have nuclear powered cars in a few years! In to days socio-political/economic environment Cruse ships will go ‘sail’ before they go nuclear…
That thing is huge. I live coupe kilometers away from that thing. Sits in Turku shipyard. gone past it couple times. looks like a cityblock sized blockhouse.
The Savannah was poorly designed for commercial operations. With a better design she might have been competitive. There must be significant gains to be made just from not having to refuel for months or years.
But I don´t deny that nuclear powered ships have problems. I am saying that most of their problems are political.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah