{"id":731410,"date":"2026-06-04T19:30:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T16:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/freedom-ship-the-floating-city-thats-been-coming-for-30-years\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T19:30:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T16:30:24","slug":"freedom-ship-the-floating-city-thats-been-coming-for-30-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/freedom-ship-the-floating-city-thats-been-coming-for-30-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Freedom Ship: the floating city that&#8217;s been coming for 30 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a3b3f01416bd\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a3b3f01416bd\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-4' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-4'><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-4' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-4'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/freedom-ship-the-floating-city-thats-been-coming-for-30-years\/#TLDR\" >TL;DR<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/freedom-ship-the-floating-city-thats-been-coming-for-30-years\/#What_the_ship_would_be\" >What the ship would be<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/freedom-ship-the-floating-city-thats-been-coming-for-30-years\/#The_money_question\" >The money question<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/freedom-ship-the-floating-city-thats-been-coming-for-30-years\/#Why_floating_cities_never_get_built\" >Why floating cities never get built<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/freedom-ship-the-floating-city-thats-been-coming-for-30-years\/#The_perennial_dream\" >The perennial dream<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.thenextweb.com\/2026\/06\/freedom-ship-floating-city-megaproject.avif\" \/><\/p>\n<div id=\"article-main-content\">\n<p><em><\/p>\n<div class=\"postContent-tldr\">\n<h4 class=\"postContent-offsetTitle\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"TLDR\"><\/span>TL;DR<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h4>\n<p>The Freedom Ship, a mile-long nuclear-powered vessel for 80,000 people, has been revived under new leadership with fresh renderings and a \u00a312 billion price tag. The concept has been \u201cabout to break ground\u201d since the 1990s, with no confirmed funding.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The renderings are gorgeous. A mile-long vessel, 800 feet wide, 30 decks high, gliding across the open ocean with parks, schools, a 15,000-seat sports stadium, and enough residential space for 50,000 permanent inhabitants. Nuclear-powered, perpetually circumnavigating the globe, never docking in port. A floating city, in the most literal sense.<\/p>\n<p>The Freedom Ship has been proposed, revised, shelved, revived, and re-rendered so many times since the 1990s that\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/freedom-ship-why-floating-cities-never-get-built-12022797\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Newsweek recently noted<\/a>\u00a0the headline announcing its imminent construction has now run, in nearly identical form, across three different decades. It is back again, this time under Freedom Cruise Line CEO Roger Gooch, who has assembled a 12-person leadership team and commissioned new designs from arcologist Kevin Schopfer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>We feel very confident that we can put this together, but the capitalisation is key,<\/em>\u201d Gooch\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/travel.yahoo.com\/cruises\/articles\/nearly-mile-long-80-000-131907310.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">told the Telegraph<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"What_the_ship_would_be\"><\/span>What the ship would be<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<div class=\"inarticle-wrapper channel-cta\">\n<div class=\"ica-text\">\n<p class=\"ica-text__title\">TNW City Coworking space &#8211; Where your best work h<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>ens<\/p>\n<p>A workspace designed for growth, collaboration, and endless networking opportunities in the heart of tech.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The 2.3 million gross-ton vessel would carry homes for 50,000 residents, space for 10,000 tourists and day visitors, and a crew of 20,000. Among the proposed amenities are high-rise hotels, a convention centre, a water park, two museums, a symphony hall, a casino, a dive-able aquarium, and nightclubs. Children would be educated from primary through secondary levels, with references to postsecondary options as well.<\/p>\n<p>Too large to dock in any existing port, the Freedom Ship would remain in international waters, transferring passengers by ferry or helicopter from eight helipads. Residents would move between districts via a tram system connecting 15 miles of walkways and three acres of parkland. The plan calls for a circumnavigation every two to two-and-a-half years at a stately seven knots.<\/p>\n<p>Construction would take place in\u00a0Indonesia, beginning with the hull built in sections and assembled offshore. Gooch has suggested residents could start moving aboard midway through a three-to-four-year build, with all future maintenance carried out at sea.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"The_money_question\"><\/span>The money question<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The estimated cost is \u00a312 billion ($16.16 billion). No confirmed funding is in place. The original concept was proposed in the 1990s by American engineer Norman Nixon, who\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Freedom_Ship\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">died in 2012<\/a>\u00a0without breaking ground. The blueprints resurfaced publicly in 2013, only to be shelved again.<\/p>\n<p>Gooch insists demand is strong, claiming \u201c<em>we could almost justify building three ships<\/em>.\u201d Revenue would come from residential sales, commercial leasing, and tourism. \u201c<em>We want entrepreneurs to lease or buy space from us, just like they would in a land-based community<\/em>,\u201d he says. The holding company would retain ownership of the casino and a \u201c<em>state-of-the-art<\/em>\u201d research hospital, which Gooch says has attracted interest from medical research facilities because the ship would operate outside the reach of national regulatory bodies.<\/p>\n<p>That last detail, a floating hospital explicitly positioned beyond regulatory oversight, is worth pausing on.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Why_floating_cities_never_get_built\"><\/span>Why floating cities never get built<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The Freedom Ship belongs to a category of megaprojects that are simultaneously too ambitious to dismiss and too ambitious to fund.\u00a0Saudi Arabia\u2019s NEOM Line, a 170km mirrored city in the desert, shares the same DNA: extraordinary renderings, staggering price tags, and a gap between vision and execution that no amount of enthusiasm has yet closed.<\/p>\n<p>The engineering challenges alone are formidable. A vessel this size has never been constructed. Nuclear propulsion for civilian maritime use remains\u00a0largely theoretical outside military applications, and the regulatory framework for a nuclear-powered residential ship carrying tens of thousands of civilians does not exist. Governance, taxation, law enforcement, and liability in international waters raise questions no rendering can answer.<\/p>\n<p>The only residential ships currently afloat are\u00a0far more modest: The World, a millionaires\u2019 vessel with fewer than 200 residences, and the Villa Vie Odyssey, a budget alternative that has had its own well-documented struggles to stay operational.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"The_perennial_dream\"><\/span>The perennial dream<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Sridev Mookerjea, the project\u2019s Singapore-based project manager, brings 30 years of experience in passenger and casino ship management. \u201c<em>Perseverance and determination help people to achieve something in this world<\/em>,\u201d he\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/travel.yahoo.com\/cruises\/articles\/nearly-mile-long-80-000-131907310.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">told the Telegraph<\/a>\u00a0over green tea at London\u2019s St Katharine Docks. \u201c<em>I believe that with Roger\u2019s efforts, patience and desire to make this a success, the sky\u2019s the limit.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps. But the Freedom Ship has been roughly a year from breaking ground for\u00a0longer than some of today\u2019s billion-dollar companies have existed. At some point, somebody has to write a very large cheque. Three decades in, nobody has.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMN63nwsw68G3Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more like this article, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/technology\/\" target=\"_blank\" >Technology category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/freedom-ship-floating-city-megaproject\" target=\"_blank\" >Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TL;DR The Freedom Ship, a mile-long nuclear-powered vessel for 80,000 people, has been revived under new leadership with fresh renderings and a \u00a312 billion price tag. The concept has been \u201cabout to break ground\u201d since the 1990s, with no confirmed funding. The renderings are gorgeous. A mile-long vessel, 800 feet wide, 30 decks high, gliding&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":731411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/media.thenextweb.com\/2026\/06\/freedom-ship-floating-city-megaproject.avif","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-731410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=731410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/731411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=731410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=731410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=731410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}