I don't have a good handle on the detailed capabilities of our current military forces, but could some problems be solved by building more aircraft carriers? Would it be possible to avoid nearby land bases altogether? B2s fly their missions from the U.S. with refueling. A lot of missions were flown from Diego Garcia. I understand a lot of close-support planes don't have the range required even from nearby carriers and still needed land bases for Afghanistan missions.

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What about building REALLY BIG carriers? Floating islands? Something big enough so that most aircraft could take off or land (except maybe B-52s--the sows!) I have no idea what the minimum takeoff run of a B-2 or some other big planes would be. The Moffett runways out here are about 9,000 feet long, about nine times the length of a normal carrier, and I've SEEN a B-52 take off from there, although it didn't have a load on board.

Personally, I'm not sure such monsters would provide enough enhanced capacity to make the cost and lack of flexibility (forget the canals) worth while. Any comments?

The proposed "Freedom Ship" (below) is 4,500 feet long, and is apparently feasible, but this is still too short for many large planes.