1. Freedom Ship - a futuristic dream that just might come true
I remember seeing similar illustrations in some vintage popular science and sci-fi publications, depicting the floating city concept in a truly mind-boggling way. I did not think for a minute that I might live to see these projects given serious consideration and being actually on a brink of being built.
According to the official site the projected "Freedom Ship" may look something like this:
Imagine a mile-long stretch of 25-story-tall buildings in New York City; now imagine that floating on the water.
"The Freedom Ship has little in common with a conventional ship; it is actually nothing more than a big barge...But what if this tremendous barge was assigned a voyage that required slowly cruising around the world, hugging the shoreline, and completing one revolution every 3 years?" There is even talk about making this city an independent country.
Incidentally, the "Freedom Ship" will possibly also be the largest man-made structure on Earth, which puts it in the same category as the Tower of Babel. It will be extremely vulnerable to a spectacular downfall, even if miraculously built (the last update on the site is from February 2005, when everything still revolved around financing) For now we can just dream on, looking at the pictures:
Notice the similarity of the above concept with the 1928 model of an airport on top of a giant building! Los Angeles architects expected private planes to replace automobiles in a near future; hence this 300m-long roof-top airstrip:
Misperception: "Freedom Ship" aircraft flight deck can accept 747 aircraft. Facts: The largest aircraft this flight deck can accept are turboprop aircraft in the 38 to 40-passenger range. (Oh well, here goes the "wow" factor...) More on this titanic undertaking here and here, where you can also trace the evolution of its design.
2. More Cruise Ship Concepts: some of them will dwarf any other ship in existence
- Kvaerner Masa-Yards' Super-Large Cruise Ship (on the left) and The Nova, a Panamax-Max ship displacing more than 100,000 GT (on the right):
Read more about the trend of increasing cruise ship sizes here
- This article speaks about "Project Genesis" - Royal Caribbean's largest-ever cruise ship with capacity of 5,400 passengers:
To give you an idea of modern cruise ships' scale, here's comparison with the Statue of Liberty:
The new liner (due sometime in 2009), code-named "Project Genesis", will dwarf the "Freedom of the Seas", measuring 220,000 tons (about 100,000 tons based on displacement — a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier comes in at about 97,000 tons)
3. The Biggest Ships Ever Constructed - Supertankers Extraordinaire!
The biggest ships ever constructed were four supertankers built in France at the end of the seventies, having a 555.000 DWT and a 414 meters length. They launched from the shipyard Chantiers de l'Atlantique at Saint Nazaire. The only larger ship was the jumboized "Knock Nevis"; ex "Jahre Viking", ex "Seawise Giant", ex "Porthos", in 1981 (see entry in Part 2). However, the Batillus class had the greater gross tonnage per ship, and it could be argued that they were, in fact, larger than the Knock Nevis.
* Batillus, built in 1976, scrapped in 1985. * Bellamya, built in 1976, scrapped in 1986. * Pierre Guillaumat, built in 1977, scrapped in 1983. * Prairial, built in 1979, (also as "Hellas Fos" and "Sea Giant") scrapped in 2003
So here is "Pierre Guillaumat" - Biggest Ship Ever Constructed:
(Source: Photo collections Didier Pinçon and Ed Keefe)
By the way, this is why it's not a good idea to build bigger ships, if you want them to be able to cross canals: ("Scraaaape!")
Hi, I'm a Korean Blogger focusing on Internet issue, gossips, and gadget. Anyway, I posted about your amazing articles and internet traffic. Thank you. by Outsider
So, what's the most unusual military vehicle you can think of? Maybe the Japanese airplane-launching submarine of WW2? Or perhaps the Soviet attempts to build a flying tank? Or perhaps the 1000 ton rolling fortress the Germans tried to build in WW2? All quite odd, I agree, but barely made it past the drawing boards. For us, the oddest is a moped armed with a 75mm cannon.
After World War II, there was little money for defense spending while the nations of Europe rebuilt their industry and society. When there was some cash to spend, one had to be creative to stretch it as far as possible. The French probably accomplished the most astounding example of that with the ACMA Troupes Aeról Portées Mle. 56. Deployed with their airborne forces, this was essentially a militarized Vespa scooter outfitted with a 75mm recoilless rifle. Five parachutes would carry the two-man gun crew, weapon, ammunition, and two scooters safely to earth, and the men would load the weapon on one scooter and the ammo on the other, then ride away. More impressively, the recoilless rifle could be fired effectively on the move by the best of the gun crews. Total cost? About $500 for the scooter and the recoilless rifle was war surplus. Were they successful military machines? Well, the French Army deployed about 800 armed scooters in wars conducted in both Algeria and Indochina.
I don't mean to be hypercritical but don't call a scooter a moped.....it calls into question your entire writing ability if you dont even research the topic enough to know the difference
I saw this contraption in another article that says the Vespa was only used for transporting the rifle. I think that is probably the truth because, if you look at the way the rifle is mounted, there is no way to adjust the elevation of the weapon independent of the scooter.
The Vespa was designed to utilize the surplus starter motors from WWII Italian aircraft. The Vespa is the ultimate example of beating swords into plowshares. I do not appreciate the French military turning our lovely freedom wheels into messengers of death.
Aside from the problem of fixed elevation, there's absolutely no reason why this couldn't be fired with a rider on the saddle. Recoilless rifles up to 105mm were fired from the shoulder, so the only thing stopping someone from firing this is the psychological impediment of having it between their knees.
The 75mm was light enough to be shoulder-fired by a strong man, but was usally fired from an ordinary machine-gun tripod.
What looks odd about this thing is that the gun doesn't look easily removable from the Vespa. It's got to be drawn back until the muzzle clears the hole.
The tripod, and more ammo, could certainly be carried on the other Vespa. And that all makes sense.
Shooting the gun while mounted on the Vespa: that seems pretty desperate.
Elevation wasn't a problem - it's a recoilless rifle, not an artillery piece. This was designed to fire rockets, not bullets. The rockets travelled essentially in a straight line, so "up-arcing" was not needed. I'm sure that the rifle was designed to be fired whilst installed on the scooter.
Recoiless rifles don't use 'rockets' either. It works just like a regular artillery piece except that the casing is perforated (holes up and down the brass case, lightly covered but that blow out upon firing) and the rear of the artillery is ported. When fired, equal energy goes out the case holes and through the rear of the gun (blast) to counter the recoil of the shell going out the business end, thus 'recoiless'. Don't be standing behind one when it fires - you would be roasted!
Recoiless rifles fell out of favor by the '70s - early '80s, due to the shell weight (all that extra powder to just go out in the rear blast) and with the introduction of wire guided missles, et al.
I'm the owner of such a Vespa TAP Military Scooter and also search information for several years now. There is a "huge hill" of wrong information written. The person who was write the M20 75mm could fired from the shoulder of a strong man didn't have seen ever this canon in real or did transportet it from one point to another point. The manual from the US Military is speaking of a six man team. The firing was every time from a tripod which was also transported with this Vespa. Normaly a collector has only the Vespa and the M20 75mm. Firing fixed from the Vespa was impossible, because by driving you didn't had any change to be in a fixed route. But there are also other different points because it's impossible.
The Vespa had his own constructed motor and never ever a surplus starter motor from a aircraft. This is realy a fairytale.
Again: "I'm sure that the rifle was designed to be fired whilst installed on the scooter."
I was spoken with a old military soldier from the french army who was ridding such a Vespa in Algeria. IT WAS IMPOSSIPLE TO DO THIS. Also the had big problems with this Vespa and their 8" wheels in the sand to drive with this complete package (6 rockets, tripot, M20 75 MM, driver, diff. small things, some fuel add.). The conception was changed into Vespa scooter with a radio equipment in a trailer (as seen also on photos from the museum of piaggio).
if it wasnt designed to be fired while attached, why mount it through a hole in the front? wouldnt it have been simpler to mount and easier to remove if just lashed to the side?
either way if anybody has any official documentation on it that would be great. it is a very interesting vehicle.
You don't remove the rifle by pulling it backwards. The saddle has hinges so you can easily open it sideways. If you look closely, you will see that there's a latch on the front shield just above the muzzle of the gun. This latch can be removed easily, thus making it possible to lift the rifle of the Vespa. Quite ingenious really. Remember this was the 50's. The first model appeared in 1956 and the second one in 1959, the differences being in the materials used for the cooling hood of the engine and the ACMA badge.
the m 20 (US army issue) altho a little heavy at 114.5 lbs it was shoulder fire weapon ,recoilless means just that it dont kick ,it shakes .speculation on my part is the little vespa was just a way to get a 6 man crew down to 2 ,air dropable didnt have to travel far or fast ,need proof of this?my team had an air dropable steal wheel roller ,now that is scarie watching it tossed out of a c47
Very neat little contraption... A bunch of nitwits pretending they know what they're talking about though. "Rifle" and "cannon"; these words have nothing to do with missiles. It fires an artillery shell. And firing a 75mm cannon (let alone 105mm) on a man's shoulder is about the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
The 'dreadnaught' bot is just a slightly customized Dreadnaught figurine from Warhammer 40,000, a tabletop wargame from British publisher Games Workshop. Some Russian guy just went fro more steampunk look, instead of 40K canonical techno-gothic.
by the time, the size reducing.. now I can have my 2 GB flashdisk as big as my finger.. I can't imagine how small it will be after 20 years after now..
12. Bread consumed while inhaling oxygen increases the risk of falling down the stairs tenfold while holding on to the railing with one hand and a chicken in the other. :)
So...if you were to say, not actually eat "bread"...but rather, all the ingredients of bread, one item right after the other, and then drank a full 8 oz of bottled water, and then went to the tanning bed....would your belly rise, and then a loaf thereby be made?? ;)
And yet for many people bread is so toxic it causes cancer and many other health problems. In fact studies show celiac and type one diabetes are incredibly linked in terms of mechanisms and heritability ... And you thought bread was safe? Whatever the heck gave you that idea?
I'd like to add that you should go to the Cassini web site and have a look at some of the raw photos that haven't been "painted" for the press. I don't know what I was expecting but really the black and white raw images of saturn are just as moving as these nice color prints....the raw images gave me such a strong feeling of deep space kinda cold loneliness that i actually made one into a poster
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Check out the pic I took of "Freedom of the Seas" in Oslo last summer...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brandnewbrain/139791450
Oyvind, thanks for this
lovely pic!
Hi, I'm a Korean Blogger focusing on Internet issue, gossips, and gadget. Anyway, I posted about your amazing articles and internet traffic. Thank you.
by Outsider
The only thing missing is the cornfield.
omg!! that's not a ship its an island!!
nice blog!
did you have a look at the Vincent Callebaut's projet, the lilypads, floatting cities?
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