An artist rendering showing the bow of the Freedom Ship, a 4,500-foot-long, 750-foot wide ship that would be a 'Community at Sea,' complete with airplanes, office spaces, restaurants and apartments. (Courtesy of Freedom Ship International)

At more than a mile long, 25 stories high, and three city blocks wide, the Freedom Ship would be the largest vessel in the world, the size of a small island. Like populated islands around the world, the ship would have its own social and economic ecosystem, complete with law enforcement, schools, hospitals, restaurants, business, and a large population of about 80,000 people. Unlike an island, this "city at sea" would be perpetually on the move, making a circumnavigation every two years at a leisurely pace of 10 knots.

It's undoubtedly an exciting and ambitious project, but whether such a ship would ever come to fruition is another question. First proposed in 1995, the Freedom Ship has been in funding limbo for nearly two decades. According to an NPR piece from 2002, construction at that time was estimated to cost around $11 billion, up from the 1999 estimate of $6 billion. And it's not only the price tag and completion date that are up in the air -- the safety of the ship has been unable to be tested due to the fact that the ship is nearly three times larger than any other ship that's ever been built. In a 2002 documentary, the Discovery Channel explored the engineering of such a ship and reported that it was impossible to determine whether the ship would be able to survive tsunami waves or hurricane events because the computer models could not properly test a ship with such large dimensions.

"We are currently attempting to contact various notable maritime testing institutes to see if new technology can address these issues," said Roger Gooch, the VP of marketing for Freedom Ship International.

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Marine engineer and naval architect Chris McKesson recommended testing a scale model of the ship in a pool that can simulate the conditions of a hurricane and other extreme weather events. Adjustments could then be made to the design. One challenge that couldn't be accounted by engineering would be the legality of a ship that can never make port and never be put to dry dock for inspections.

"If you're a passenger-carrying vessel, you'd have to have an annual dry dock in the U.S. or you'd have to have a long negotiation with the Coast Guard." McKesson said. "They're regulators, there to protect life and the environment. They don't have a problem with imposing an expensive regulation if that's what the job takes."

McKesson added that the best way to prevent damage to the ship would be to avoid putting it in dangerous situations and mapping out a route based on seasonal weather events. One of the big difficulties with such a large ship would have to do with slowing the ship down once it started moving and lowering life rafts, which could be destroyed by running into Freedom Ship if they were lowered overboard in rough seas.

Although there are many unknowns in the project, Freedom Ship spokesperson Gooch said that once the company has raised enough venture capital, they fully intend on pushing ahead with the project.

"If you want to see the world and live your life and do business and do everything from a land-based community but do it on a mobile community, the Freedom Ship is for you," Gooch said in an interview with Weather.com.

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The ship would certainly provide a unique lifestyle to those who would choose it. With everything from a timeshare apartment for $60,000 to a luxury 1,200-square-foot room with a view for just over $1 million, the goal of the ship would be to offer a living space for any budget. It would also be a global community, with residents hailing from countries around the world and able to visit dozens of new locales with each stop the ship made. Though the ship would have to stop 15 miles away from shore, planes and hydrofoils could ferry people to and from the ship.

It's impossible to predict whether or not the Freedom Ship will ever change from dream to reality, but it's exciting to imagine such projects. The ship would present a marvel of modern engineering and a thrilling alternative to the landlubber lifestyle.

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Pilot Andre Borschberg flies the experimental solar-powered aircraft, Solar Impulse, above Lake Geneva during a test flight from Payerne to Geneva on September 21, 2010. (JEAN REVILLARD/AFP/Getty Images)