Talk:Freedom Ship

Norman Nixon
Does anyone know where Norman Nixon lives. im trying to find his personal e-mail address on whitepages.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by Darth639 (talk • contribs) 20:00, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Try norm@rexmd.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.234.127.85 (talk) 08:53, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Email to Freedom Ship HQ is bouncing
None of the email addresses work.

---begin attachment---

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

Info@FreedomShip.com

Technical details of permanent failure: PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 13): 550 5.1.1 ... User unknown

---end attachment

I get the same error reqardless of who I send email to at freedomship.com. It looks like it's finally over.

FYI www.freedomship.com is offline as of August 5 2005. Last Google cache was July 26. Last update was February 10 2005 indicating problems obtaining reliable financing.
 * It's online right now... - John C PI 18:50, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Their website hasn't been updated in over a year. Also, their corporate phone line has been disconnected - I just tried calling it. It's over. Time to delete this page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.100.48.167 (talk) 16:05, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * You seem to have Wikipedia, a factual encyclopedia, with some sort of directory of contemporary or present-day-only topics. DMacks (talk) 16:25, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * As of September 2011, all phone numbers and email accounts are DEAD. Please update the article.108.23.147.17 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:46, 8 September 2011 (UTC).

Is this really legitimate?
I've seen the HowStuff Works article, i've seen the freedom ship website, and the webhacks who are out to disprove it. My question is, does this proposal hold enough water (pun intended) to merit a wikiarticle? If i were tonight to propose the creation of a gerbil-powered city near easter island as soon as i could obtain reliable funding, could i then have an article made about me?


 * Presumably, if it made as much news as this project has, then yes, I see no reason why there couldn't be a justifiable entry - for those curious and seeking more information on the Easter Island GerbilCity Project. Tenmiles 04:26, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

hey i love da feredcxbb jmcxfkxd vhjznncvjvkfmnlzcvxncvj khj — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.2.240.3 (talk) 18:02, 4 March 2012 (UTC)


 * This project has and are unfeasible. Just to propel this monster and feeding all electric support hardware it would require nuclear power, turning this project a nightmare just by this. It would be first ship that would require a 2500 MW nuclear reactor (or even two!) to power this ship. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.193.44.155 (talk) 19:21, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Cost estimate
This needs a citation. If it comes only from FSI it should be removed as marketing hype; if it is based on existing ships, it's likely invalid as it's pretty clear conventional design techniques won't work for a vessel this size. Sources, please. Just zis Guy you know? 18:51, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * OMGoogle! theanphibian 22:12, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Unconventional Design
The Freedom ship will not have a keel as a standard ship would have. Rather it will be more like a floating 'barge', in that the platform that the 'ship' is built on is simply an array of water-tight cells; albeit huge ones, each of which will contain its own Azipod propulsion system. These cells will be attached to one another to create one enormous inflexible 'raft'.

The concept of the ship being structurally able to withstand ocean swells is based on the idea of a 'floating beam'. The ship is so vast that it will actually span ocean swells the way a wooden plank might float on the ripples of a lake. Besides that, the design will follow basic design principles that stipulate that a beam must be a certain thickness for it's proposed length.


 * And for all of that we need a citation from a reliable source. Just zis Guy you know? 06:53, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

On Discovery
I am watching a show on Discovery about Freedom Ship right now, it is a re-run from 2002. But from this article I get the idea the project is pretty much dead. If anyone can bring this story into 2007 it would be appreciated. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.105.209.231 (talk) 22:02, 10 January 2007 (UTC).

Hogging and Sagging
An attenuating wave device, such as in the Pelamis wave energy converter could be implemented to absorb the hogging and sagging of a large vessel alowing it to be built larger, while generating electricity to power it.

Progress
One can only wonder what progress "Freedom Ship International" is making. We have been hearing about this project since the 90's, so when will it start happening. The website of the company has not been updated in 2 years. I think we can consider this a former project.Sloveniaiscool 02:25, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I think there are a lot of articles on Wikipedia like this. When someone starts spouting off some stuff about a megaproject, then there are lots of secondary sources that are all over it, but then as the years go by and it just fades out of memory as everyone thought it would, there's not much to update you because... the problem is that there's nothing to update other than missed milestones and lack of progress.  The idea is very notable, but I agree, it's pretty well a failed idea as well.  However, I think it would be difficult to put something in the article about that. -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 03:25, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
 * True, but I think the article should say, "the freedom ship WAS a project...." Sloveniaiscool 04:04, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, but that's the exact problem, do we have any evidence that it's not undergoing any progress right now? -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 04:09, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes very true, I suppose we must leave it.Sloveniaiscool 18:43, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * As per the section above - it would appear that for one, there are people still dedicated to this project enough to keep a website going, and two, the last "news" was in 2005.  I think this is notable enough to add to the article.  And certainly, the general concept of migration of humans off land to somewhere else persists and this remains the most serious manifestation of it. -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 21:57, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Apparently they aren't dedicated enough to answer their email. I sent email to futurefreedomshipresident@comcast.net over a week ago and still haven't received a response. The email address appears to be okay. It didn't bounce.Wrcousert (talk) 07:29, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Freedom Ship International logo.jpg
Image:Freedom Ship International logo.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 20:19, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Freedom Ship side view.jpg
Image:Freedom Ship side view.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 20:20, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

May 2008 Rewrite
I just rewrote this article from scratch, given the sources provided, in an attempt to wikify it and make it more encyclopedic. However, my end result is improperly weighted towards the criticism, and some technical details (like the 400 azipods) have been lost. If someone cares enough to invest the time (I really ought to be sleeping...), it would be nice if the smaller sections could be expanded. Of course, this project seems to be destined for oblivion as a footnote in some history textbook, so too lengthy an article is probably not necessary... --John Hupp (talk) 09:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Nixon is such a tool.
Norman Nixon HIMSELF erased the page and replaced it with this:

My name is Norman Nixon and I just read the documentation of Freedom Ship on this site.

I am the lead Professional Engineer associated with the design of the ship and the CEO of Freedom Ship Inc.

I have never seen anything as distorted as the reports on these pages. I wish to clarify the situation.

1. We went public long before the reported date of 1999. My engineers and myself have heard from thousands of people, over the years, from most every country on this planet. And it has been a "learning experience" like we never expected.

2. The vast majority of these people want to join us and help us bring the ship to fruition so they can purchase space on the ship and enjoy the same type of "new lifestyle" we envision. This was what we were hoping would happen, but it has been in numbers far greater than we ever expected. We were originally hoping we could find enough people to build one ship, but we have heard from enough people to build more than 3 ships.

3. We have also been contacted by a group of people who we thought in the beginning had a serious interest in the ship, but this was an even bigger "learning experience" for us. A number of these people that came from most every country on earth wanted nothing more than to use us for a "scam." We spent a lot of our time with several groups of these con men. In the beginning, we thought they were "for real" when they were promising us financing for the ship. I have heard of such "scams" all of my life but I never expected to personally meet such a criminal in person. However, I have now met with more than two hundred of them. And we wasted a lot of valuable time meeting with them and checking them out. This has been my biggest disappointment because we wasted a lot of time with these "characters" that we could have spent doing serious work on the development of the ship, or producing an income to feed the family. They flew in from Australia, Hong Kong, Europe, and other countries and we wasted our time with all of them. This was "learning experience" number 2 associated with the Freedom Ship Project.

4. Another, smaller group, also came to us wanting more information on the ship. We worked with them also, but they started reporting things on their web site that were far off base. It appears they were not only talking to us, but to a group of so-called "experts" that were not even engineers, much less Registered Professional Engineers. In the beginning we spent time explaining the technical facts about the ship to them, (trying to be nice guys) but they ignored everything we said. We were confused as to why they were ignoring us (all Registered Professional Engineers) and putting on their web sites statements made by people with no knowledge or credibility of any type. Then we were finally informed about the "realities" associated with many web sites. This was "learning experience" number 3. It appears that people can make money based on how many people they have coming to their web site. These people do everything they can to "get associated" with any "major web site" such, as our Freedom Ship site, and they do or say anything to try and attract some of our people to their web site. We don't really care how many of our people go to their web sites, but we strongly disagree with the things they say on their sites. These people have gone so far as to accuse us of running a "scam." So, I invited several of them to come here and personally visit with me, our attorney, and our engineers. But none of them came, because they could really care less about whether or not we were running a "scam;" they just want to generate "controversy" and bring people to their web sites. This is the people who took advantage of Freedom Ship and of Wikipedia by making totally false reports.

5. Since I have given you our history, I will also give Wikipedia the first "official" notification of where we stand today -- July 1, 2008. We are still in business and still working on the project. But we did run into a little bump in the road. I set up, as our President, a man who had the "Financial Experience" we "engineers" do not have. His education and Financial Experience, as well as his personality, seemed to make him the perfect person we needed to move forward on the project. And he assured us he had found our financing, so we were all excited. But then I discovered that our $400,000 bank account (which we were using to do a public IPO so we could sell Freedom Ship stock to the general public) abruptly went down to nothing. It appears he turned over our entire bank account to a man who promised him a "Peruvian Gold certificate" worth a billion dollars. Before this we could not believe that anyone (especially a well educated and successful person) could believe something like this. This was "learning experience" number 4. He did this without our knowledge. He also took the money out of our bank account even though he did not have "signature authority." So, as you might guess, we have a major law suit against everyone involved. Per the laws of the State of Florida, the crime of "racketeering" brings a fine of 3 times the money you take. So, we are going after everyone involved for $1,200,000. This crime also brings a jail penalty, but we are willing to overlook this as long as we get our $1,200,000. This is more than we need to complete our IPO. Then is all we need to build the ship and move forward.

Thank you,

Norman Nixon, PE, CEO

I have created a section on this. Hopefully it is neutral enough, make edits if you feel it is nessecary. Just don't erase it. It speaks volumes about this project. --Zblewski (talk) 04:39, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Removed material
I removed the sentence which included this assertion:


 * the abstraction of the structure and simplistic planning of facilities suggests that the project has not been thoroughly designed beyond the basic mechanics of a barge

Although the claims seems likely to be true to me, it nevertheless is unsourced.

The statement claims that the simplistic planning "suggests" something--suggests to whom? The wikipedia editor?

The source provided at the end of the paragraph relates to a supposed police state and does not support this assertion.

I am not claiming that I think the Freedom Ship is a good idea. Nevertheless, we must confine ourselves to assertions with references to high-quality sources. Twerges (talk) 00:07, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

1999
A few seconds of Googling clearly shows that the first line of this article claiming that Freedom Ship was "initially proposed by Norman Nixon in 1999" is incorrect. Numerous postings appeared on USENET prior to 1999 about Freedom Ship and here's a Popular Mechanics article dated February 1998 on the ship: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/transportation/1289186.html?page=1 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.118.167.228 (talk) 19:22, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Removal of Self-published sources
I just removed as references a number of self-published sources. Wikipedia guidelines back me up here: see WP: Reliable Source. One appears to be a self-published magazine, and all of them are sites that very clearly have an agenda of promoting the material for this website. They are not appropriate as sources for this page. Anything that cannot be referenced in reliable third-party sources must be removed from this page. I think these links are perfectly acceptable under "External Links" since they are very relevant. But the standards for a source are much higher. Cazort (talk) 01:14, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Disputes?
Article is tagged for neutrality and accuracy disputes, but a quick scan of the discussion here does not suggest anything currently in the article that is actually disputed. Can someone enlighten me as to why it is tagged? JulesH (talk) 07:17, 18 August 2010 (UTC)


 * My immediatist leanings lead me to conclude that if there does not actually appear to be any dispute on the talk page, then there should not be a tag on the article claiming that there is. I removed it. siafu (talk) 15:55, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Call for deletion
I think it's time to pull the plug on this entry. It's obvious that "Freedom Ship" is a huge practical joke. Consider how many years it's been going on with absolutely no progress whatsoever. Please look at all the evidence and do the right thing. Delete this page.74.100.45.175 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:13, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
 * It hasn't been built and probably never will be. Kinda like Atlantropa, Dyson sphere, Astroengineering, Cloud Nine (tensegrity sphere), etc. Notability, our criterion for inclusion, is based on coverage in independent reliable sources. Proposals, theories, conjectures and purely fictional ideas can all be notable. - Sum mer PhD  (talk) 02:28, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Agree with SummerPhD. Obviously won't be built, at least any time soon, but nonetheless satisfies wikipedia's standards for notability. siafu (talk) 04:07, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

So what's the fate of this project?
The beginning of the article says it 'was' a project about building a floating city on water, whereas the article itself says something about the project still being active as of 2016. Is it, or is it not a dead project? If it's not dead, then make the corrections.--92.114.148.141 (talk) 16:49, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Can confirm, emailed several days ago and got a reply within two days. The project is indeed active and looking to expand towards student cooperation.

2019 documentary on the history and current status of the project
This documentary includes audio recordings of an interview with the current (2019) CEO Roger Gooch which includes details of the founding of the project. It also identifies the 2012 death of Norman Nixon, the project originator and first CEO.

Also here are some text sources that corroborate some of the facts in the documentary.
 * https://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/blog/morning-edition/2013/12/engineer-revives-floating-city.html
 * https://www.cnbc.com/2013/12/02/sink-or-swim-floating-the-idea-of-a-sailing-tax-haven.html
 * https://www.theyachtmarket.com/en/articles/general/freedom-ship/
 * https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a5385/1289186/
 * https://www.heraldtribune.com/article/LK/20021021/News/605242537/SH

47.176.126.162 (talk) 09:08, 30 July 2021 (UTC)