People have been trying to deal with the technical problems of ship maintenance for hundreds of years, and in the case of platforms have had massive international companies put tremendous amounts of resources into improving their engineering. They are still extremely expensive and difficult to run. Given how much research has already been put into these issues it seems unlikely that a few more years of research will substantially improve the situation.
Recently the relatively awesome entrepreneur invested 1.25 million USD into this (seasteading institute website here).
It seems such a wonderful concept, finally somewhere where new forms of government could be tried out. But I'm just wondering how in the world they hope to deal with existing governments since their reaction to any kind of serious alternatives, especially one that either economically or ideologically presented a significant challenge, is bound to not be positive.
I was just wondering what LWer thoughts are on this matter? Also has there been any discussion of seasteading in the past that I've missed? Also I'm wondering if anyone would hazard to perhaps offer a prediction or judge how likley this is to succeed (maybe on predictionbook)?