Aircraft Carrier Economics

I want you to imagine living on a massive oceanliner. This oceanliner is equipped with water splitting engines, which feed massive supercapacitors to power the ship's engines and all other equipment on board.

Near the engines there is a large metal forge which can be used to hammer out or machine metal and tools into anything necessary. There are a series of CAD machines and 3D printers which operate robotically 24 hours a day, powered by water you float in. Metal and other raw materials can be acquired or traded for at ports, which are mined by other robots and technicians.

The ship's roof is a massive greenhouse, in which fruits and vegetables of all kinds are grown, and animals are raised. On land, there exist massive hundred square mile tree farms and hemp farms and also more greenhoused farms for other people. The ship provides the majority of its own food and desalinizes seawater through a system of carbon microtubes built at a laboratory in Washington, DC which supplies much of the region with cheap desalinization equipment. Their machines are powered by hydrogen fuel from water.

The ship is peopled by technicians who operate the machines, and have in fact chosen to become apprentices on board and technicians by their own volition. The technicians operate and maintain the machines that produce machined products including all tools and parts required by the ship and its machines. The ship has communications equipment via satellite by software defined radio.

How long would it take to build this ship? We could do it in one month, aggressively. Blueprints would be formed to mirror the goals inscribed. Factories running on hydrogen would robotically produce the microchips and parts required for the job. Engineers on site in San Francisco would tool the ship together with drills and welding techniques using hydrogen flames hotter than the surface of the sun.

The building tools would be paid for by loaning use of the standing machines, powering them from free hydrogen energy acquired from the sea in an existing hydrogen splitting plant.

The technical skills would come from people desiring to live on the ship and from skilled workers at standing factories producing standard public sale equipment on loan or with capital.

The raw materials would be acquired either from the technical factory or by the builders with the use of mining and refining equipment powered by hydrogen fuel from the standing hydrogen splitting factory and using hydrogen heat from the same.

Vehicles could be crafted from carbon fiber instead of steel in the same way, and steel currently being used for vehicles could be used for these items. Or coal could be stripped for carbon and turned into stronger and lighter than steel siding for a ship and fused by welding into place.

The remaining portions of supportive society would function with hydrogen fuel to heat and light their homes and move their cars without cost but for conservation and systems maintenance. Tolls could be more effective.

Massive greenhouses built from recycled materials would eliminate the need for pesticides and substantially extend the growing season and latitude. These greenhouses, heated and irrigated with seawater, could cheaply provide the world with plentiful foodstocks.

Once the workers were done, about half would shove off and then they would begin work on more things, at a comfortable pace.