The Raft
From the Quicksilver Metaweb.
The Snow Crash page for the Raft AKA the USS ENTERPRISE
Stephensonia
something appropriate, either that news footage of L Bob on the Enterprise with all the falabalas, or from Hiro's infiltration sequence.
Authored Entries
The Raft
Enterprise, Long Beach and Bainbridge
in formation in the Mediterranean, 18 June 1964.
Enterprise crewmembers are spelling out
Einstein's equation on the flight deck.
This was the first all-nuclear battle formation.
The Sealift of all sealifts, it is a regularized migration of East Asian people to the western coast of North America organized by the enterprises of L Bob Rife. It began when L Bob purchased the nuclear powered aircraft carrier, U.S.S. Enterprise, from the bankrupt government of the United States of America ostensibly to be his personal yacht, but in reality to serve as the core of what would become The Raft, a tied together fleet of ships ranging in size from oil tankers and container freighters to houseboats, speed boats, and sampans. The Core picks up its husk of subsidiary ships and passengers on its drifting clockwise course around the Pacific Ocean, keeps them generally under control via a constabulary of en who are wirelessly relayed nam-shubs to program the Asherah infected passengers with instructions, until off the western coast of North America, where upon, the en distribute marching orders to a half million of L Bob's sock puppets to come ashore.
In an era when the US Federal Government is in debt rougly equal to the entire public and private money supply, and is expanding that debt at double digit percentage rates each year while suffering a 40% depreciation in the value of the dollar over a three year period, the idea of liquidation of public assets to alleviate debt starts to look appealing.
The Raft appears to have been some sort of inspiration for the "Smokers" culture in the controversial 1995 cult movie, "Waterworld" produced and directed and starred in by Kevin Costner. The "Smokers" live on the oil tanker "Exxon Valdez" and prey upon other waterborne communities in a world that has been unrealistically flooded by the melting of the polar ice caps by global warming. They worship the legendary and notorious Captain Joseph Hazelwood of that vessel, who ran it aground in Alaska. They are led in their ministrations by Deacon, played by Dennis Hopper.
Criticism of The Raft Concept
The idea that a fleet of vessels could drift around the ocean, tied together, without damage, is regarded as physically improbable because of the Casimir Effect, which occurs when two objects are close to each other in a plenum awash in wave energy. When two ships are steaming along astride each other at a close distance of 40 meters or less, they create a slightly calm area of lower wave energy density between them because they block waves from either side and destructively interfere with those entering the space from bow and stern. This causes the ships to drift together, possibly with enough force to cause serious damage, even crushing of hulls if wave energy is high enough, such as that of a major open-ocean storm.
While the Casimir Effect itself is considred a quantum mechanical vacuum force, its nautical analog in the realm of ocean waves is well explained by Professor John D. Barrow in this lecture he gave at Gresham College (rather synchronic, isn't it?), entitled "Much Ado About Nothing". This effect has been documented since at least 1836, in P. C. Caussee's L'Album du Marin (The Album of the Mariner). Caussee reported a mysteriously strong attractive force that can arise between two ships floating side by side -- a force that can lead to disastrous consequences. A physical explanation for this force was offered only recently by Boersma (1996), who suggested that it originates in the radiation pressure of water waves acting differently on the opposite sides of the ships. His argument goes as follows: the spectrum of possible wave modes around the two ships forms a continuum (any arbitrary wave-vector is allowed); but between the vessels their opposing sides impose boundary conditions on the wave modes, restricting the allowed values of the component of the wave-vector that is normal to the ships' surfaces. This discreteness created in the spectrum of wave modes results in a local redistribution of modes in the region between the ships, with the consequence that there is a smaller radiation pressure between the ships than outside them.
USS Enterprise
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The eighth USS Enterprise (CVN-65) was the world's first nuclear supercarrier, powered by eight A2W reactors. Like her predecessor, she is nicknamed the "Big E". She remains the longest aircraft carrier in the world today.
Her keel was laid in 1958 and she was launched on 24 September 1960 by Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company sponsored by Mrs. W. B. Franke, wife of the former Secretary of the Navy. She was commissioned on 25 November 1961 with Captain Vincent P. DePoix in command.
After commissioning, Enterprise began a lengthy series of tests and training exercises, designed to determine the full capabilities of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Immediately her superlative characteristics and performance became obvious. She began flight operations on 17 January 1962, when a F8U Crusader became the first airplane to land on board her giant flight deck. The same aircraft later became the first plane to be catapulted from Enterprise.
One month later, on 20 February 1962, the nuclear-powered carrier played a role in the space age when Enterprise acted as a tracking and measuring station for the flight of Friendship 7, the "Project Mercury" space capsule in which Lieutenant Colonel John H. Glenn. Jr., USMC, made the United States' first orbital space flight.
The first three deployments of Enterprise, from August 1962, were to the US Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean.
In August of 1964 as operation Sea Orbit, Enterprise, along with Long Beach and Bainbridge, embarked on an 30,565 mile (49,190 km) around the world cruise to demonstrate the ability of nuclear-powered ships to operate free from the usual ties to shore bases.
Upon completion of this operation, the carrier entered the shipyard at Newport News, Virginia, for refuelling. Upon completion, the ship was transferred to the Pacific Fleet to provide support to the growing war in Vietnam.
On 14 January 1969, while the ship was 70 nautical miles (130 km) from Honolulu, Hawaii, an accidental armament explosion of an aircraft on the flight deck sparked a large fire and further explosions of munitions or fuel. Twenty-eight crew were killed and over 150 were wounded.
She returned to Newport for her second refuelling in 1970 and following the 1973 Vietnam cease-fire she was docked at Puget Sound for an extensive refit to support a wing of the new F-14 fighters. Enterprise was later deployed to assist in Operation Frequent Wind in 1975.
From 1979 to 1982, she underwent another extensive refit at Puget Sound, centered on improvements to the electronics and detection systems—the entire island was effectively rebuilt. In another extended refit from 1990 to 1994 she was updated to serve until 2015. This refit was supplemented with additional six-month work stints in 1995, 1997, 1999, and 2003. Her intended replacement will be CVN-78, to be built by 2013.
As of 2004, Enterprise is homeported at NS Norfolk, Virginia. On 11 September 2001, Enterprise was just outside of the Persian Gulf and was the first carrier to take station off of Afghanistan and was among the first units to conduct strikes on the Taliban in Pakistan as part of Operation Infinite Justice, later renamed Operation Enduring Freedom. Most recently, Enterprise embarked on Summer Surge '04 and participated in several multinational exercises.
A common misconception that began during the 1970s and persisted into the 80s and 90s was that the Enterprise's nuclear reactors gave her an abnormally high top speed, as high as 50 knots was rumored. The truth was somewhat more prosaic: Since the ship carried eight nuclear reactors, she could get up full steam almost immediately, allowing her to accelerate far more quickly than any other ship until the introduction of the naval gas turbine in the early 70s. By the 1990s, gas turbine ships which could keep up with or even exceed the nuclear ships' acceleration were common in the fleet, but the rumors persisted and continue to persist. Another incorrect rumor is that Enterprise's reactors leak enough to be a danger on-shore from a typical harbor anchorage; this is needless to say false, as such a high level of leakage would make the ship immediately hazardous to the lives of those who serve aboard.
Enterprise is the only ship of her class.
See USS Enterprise for other ships of the same name.
Trivia
The Enterprise was supposed to appear in the film Star Trek IV, but it was out to sea at the time of filming. Instead, the carrier USS Ranger CV-61 played the part of the Enterprise.
Military Surplus
Aircraft Carrier FOR SALE!!!
This aircraft carrier, originally British, sold to Brazil in 1960,
was sold to private owners in 2002 but is again available
due to difficulties sailing her out of Rio de Janiero.
Military surplus are goods, usually matériel, that are sold at public auction when no longer needed by the military. Entrepreneurs often buy these goods and resell them at army-navy stores. Military surplus rarely includes weapons or munitions, though they are occasionally found in such stores. Usually the goods sold by the military are clothing, equipment, and tools of a generally useful nature. However, the Citizen Marksmanship Program, in operation for decades, provides low cost infantry rifles (M-1, M-14 models) to civilians who participate in marksmanship competitions, the ostensible purpose being to fulfill the purpose of the state's need for 'well regulated' (i.e. trained and skilled) militia.
Following major military conflicts, such as WWI and WWII, many governments, including that of the US, have sold off major quantities of military equipment and systems for surplus and/or scrap, including aircraft, ships, submarines, construction equipment and even whole military facilities. While generally major pieces of equipment like a nuclear powered aircraft carrier would be sold to a scrap metal dealing shipyard for disassembly, the idea of a person purchasing said piece of equipment, in the day of individuals worth tens of billions of dollars, is not entirely unreasonable.
The barnstorming period of American aviation was created by WWI veteran pilots flying surplus Air Corps aircraft for profit, in providing local amusement rides, flying lessons, air show acts featuring aerobatic and stunt flying, or more prosaic applications like private air mail services. Without public access to cheap surplus aircraft, this era of expansion of civil aviation likely never would have happened. A similar explosion in civil aviation occured after WWII as surplus cargo planes, bombers, fighters, and observation aircraft were sold to the public. Most aircraft used in fighting forest fires today are surplus military aircraft sold at auction.
Currently, the 902 ft. Soviet aircraft carrier 'Minsk', part of a theme park in Shenzen, China, is in hock and up for bids. Several cold war and WWII era submarines are in private hands, and quite frequently states and communities who have retired naval ships named after them attempt to save their namesakes from the scrap heap.
Refugee Sealifts
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Operation Peter Pan -From Dec. 26, 1960 through Oct 22, 1962, 14,048 unaccompanied children were send by their parents to the United States. The children were between the ages of 6 and 18 years old. Source [1]. In many occacions in the past 45 years, Castro's government have used migration as a leveraging tool to force the United States government to accept some sort of agreement.
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The Mariel Boatlift was a mass exodus of mentally ill, imprisoned and freedom seeking refugees from Cuba's Mariel Harbour, between Apr 15 until Oct 31, 1980, when Castro eventually closed the harbour to all refugee seeking Cubans. The people who wished to leave the country headed to Florida. The majority of the refugees landed in Miami upon their arrival in the United States. Approximately 125,000 Cubans arrived in the United States in about 1,700 boats, many of which were unseaworthy. Most of the people came in large waves that overwhelmed the U.S. Coast Guard and many reservists were called to assist the Coast Guard during this time. In terms of casualties a total of 27 migrants died, 14 on an overloaded boat which capsized on May 17, 1980.
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Events resulting from the Vietnam War led many people in Indochina to become refugees in the late 1970s and 1980s. In Cambodia, the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime murdered millions, and many attempted to escape. In Vietnam, the new government sent many people who supported the old government in the south to "re-education camps" and others to "new economic zones". These factors, coupled with poverty, caused millions of Vietnamese to flee the country. In 1979, Vietnam was at war with the People's Republic of China (PRC), and many ethnic Chinese living in Vietnam felt that the government's policies directly targetted them also became boat people. In the open seas, the boat people have to confront forces of nature and elude pirates. The plight of the boat people became a humanitarian crisis. The UNHCR, under the auspices of the United Nations, set up refugee camps in neighboring countries to process them and was awarded the 1981 Nobel Peace Prize for its work. Hong Kong adopted the "port of first asylum policy", and received the largest among of refugees. Many refugee camps were set up in its territories, and it had exerted financial pressure on the government. Most of these refugees resettled in the United States and Western Europe. By the mid-1990s, the number of refugees fleeing from Vietnam had dwindled down. Many refugee camps were closed down, and asylees voluntarily or forcibly repatriated.
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Yacht people is a slang term for the wealthy residents of Hong Kong who fled the city in the 1980s and 1990s, prior to the city's return to communist China in 1997. The term is a deliberate contrast to the poor "boat people" who fled southeast Asia (most notably Vietnam) in the 1970s. The most popular destination for the yacht people was Vancouver, Canada.
Aside from these relatively recent migrations, history is littered with episodes of one government trying to pawn off what it saw as liabilities upon some other country or wild land. These include the transporting of Scottish and Irish farmers as well as English criminals, by British aristocracy to Canada, the US, and Australia.
Additional information
- Larzelere, Alex. The 1980 Cuban Boatlift. (Washington DC: National Defense University Press): 1988.
- See: The Camarioca Boatlift of 1965.