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The Half Mile High, 'Burj Dubai Tower', will be completed by next year.
Picture below:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entert...all-849088.html

And if you think thats tall...They are about to start another one
Twice as tall...Thats a mile High!

With hydraulics to prevent swaying sickness.
So thats where all the Petro Dollars go.
Blurb here.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...ival-built.html




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Sooner or later someone is going to blow up these skyscrapers just because they can. Then it will be Arab blood that will be shed, and I hope that they learn what it is to be destroyed in a senseless act of terrorism. Their time is coming.


If you don't care for reality, just wait a while; another will be along shortly. --A Rose

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Originally Posted By: Amaranth Rose II
Sooner or later someone is going to blow up these skyscrapers just because they can. Then it will be Arab blood that will be shed, and I hope that they learn what it is to be destroyed in a senseless act of terrorism. Their time is coming.

When I read the topic title that's exactly what entered my mind. For humanity's sake, let's hope it never comes to that.


"Time is what prevents everything from happening at once" - John Wheeler
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The logic behind teh "invention" of skyscrapers was to build "up" because of a shortage of land (ie. Manhattan). The Arab nations, who have anything but land shortages, seem to want to just build them because they can. I wonder if we'll now hear about joining the half-mile high club?

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Originally Posted By: Kate
The logic behind teh "invention" of skyscrapers was to build "up" because of a shortage of land (ie. Manhattan). The Arab nations, who have anything but land shortages, seem to want to just build them because they can. I wonder if we'll now hear about joining the half-mile high club?


Originally Posted By: Mike Kremer

Those towers will bring them a lot of adverse publicity.
If only they had bought a 100 desalination plants, they could have had the admiration of the world, all flocking to view the new "Green Eden".

Mike Kremer

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I sort of remember in the 1980s there being a mention that perhaps some skyscrapers will extend into outer space and could be used as launch platforms for space craft to visit Mars. I think the theory was that a craft would either launch from ground to pick up its crew and provisions by docking with the top of the skyscraper or it would be built at the top of the skyscraper and depart from there. I cannot remember where I read this.

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Originally Posted By: Rallem
I sort of remember in the 1980s there being a mention that perhaps some skyscrapers will extend into outer space and could be used as launch platforms for space craft to visit Mars. I think the theory was that a craft would either launch from ground to pick up its crew and provisions by docking with the top of the skyscraper or it would be built at the top of the skyscraper and depart from there. I cannot remember where I read this.


I suspect you're talking about a space elevator, sometimes known as a "beanstalk". Check this out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator


Mike B in OKlahoma

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Rallem

Since the eighties, there's been some serious scientific evaluation of such ideas, but a more economically realistic prospect is the space elevator. Until recently, even that appeared to be more fantasy than science, but the advent of the carbon nanotube has changed things. The main hitch may be the large scale production and assembly of the nanotubes.

"3.3.1 Tall Towers

Today, the world's tallest self-supporting building is the CN Tower in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was built from 1973-1975, is 553 m in height, and has the world's highest observation deck at 447 m. The tower structure is concrete up to the 447-m observation deck level. Above the observation deck is a steel structure supporting radio, television, and communication antennas. The total weight of the tower is 300,000 tons. The height of existing towers and buildings today are not limited by construction technology or by materials strength. Conventional materials and methods make it possible even today to construct towers many kilometers in height. When considering how high a tower can be built, it is important to remember that it can be built out of anything if the base is large enough. Theoretically, you could build a tower to GEO out of bubble gum, but the base would probably cover half the sphere of the Earth. The height of existing towers and buildings today are not limited by building technology or by materials strength; it is simply that there has not been a good economic reason to build towers any taller than have been built so far."

http://www.affordablespaceflight.com/spaceelevator.html

Carbon nanotube (approximately 1/50,000th of the width of a human hair)


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It's funny, my first thought on looking at the article (without having read the comments here) was "Wow, I thought they predicted skyscrapers were dead as a real estate venture after 9/11!" Obviously, that's not true. My instinct would be to say that if there's another skyscraper related terrorist attack, that may truly make them undesirable, but I'm not so sure. Remember that there were actually two separate attacks on the WTC, the first one was quite effective in disrupting things and killing a few people, even if it didn't bring the towers down.


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I wasn't talking about a space elevator but rather a building which would reach into outerspace and have docks at a certain level for ships to dock with and depart with minimal fuel consumption. Now with that said the building would serve as a space elevator but it wouldn't need a geosynchronous orbiting object to work.

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Quote:
I sort of remember in the 1980s there being a mention that perhaps some skyscrapers will extend into outer space and could be used as launch platforms


I still think that using a type of balloon would be the most cost effective launch platform , you could reuse the gas used to lift the platform by pumping the lifting gas into tanks to lower the platform , kind of like a submarine in reverse.

the payload would be the space shuttle minus the main rocket engines , the two booster rockets , and the main hydrogen tank

the payload could then be further lifted by the iss or a similar orbiting platform using carbon nano ribbons.

you would have a completely reuseable payload delivery system that would direct much more time , effort , funds into the actual construction of a mars mission vehicle.

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I think a balloon would be great for assisting a craft achieve altitude without those expensive booster rockets, but on the other hand if a ship where to be loaded down for a three year plus mission to Mars then that would have to be one heck of a big balloon if it is even possible. I think the building a skyscraper to jut into outer space and act as a loading dock for the crew and supplies of such ships would be better because the building could also have other uses. I think the negative side of such a building would be the huge cost of maintenance and the risk of terrorist attack.

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You know you could use the balloons to transport pre fab sections to a assembly plant in orbit !!

you could build a massive ship this way and there would be no need for the heavy weight associated with a landbased rocket.

I dont think that we will ever build a tower that reaches into space , not when there are less expensive and safer alternatives.

we cant even safely / properly build here on the earth.

I just thought that using a triangle configuration you could lift sections of a space shade this way , the balloons themself could be built to form a triangle and the sections could actually connect themselves to each other remotely or through programmed commands.

now theres a project that would keep us alive longer so that buisness men can make more money off us us.

I have read the points on the risk of the dubai tower from terrorist attacks , I hope that this would never happen , and
I hope that they are not skimping on material stress and I hope that they understand that if a aircraft were to crash into it and the magnesium wheels were to be ignighted the heat from the wheels as they burn through the floors of the building would weaken the overall structure.

as did in the twin towers.

I think that the three pools of molten metal was due to the heat from the burning landing gear and wheels of the aircraft , there were three sets of wheels on each aircraft , and three pools of molten metal in the basements of each tower , two large and one small in each.

this burning magnesium would explode the concrete floors one at a time as they burned through each successive floor.

and may be some of the explosions that were heard before the towers collapsed.

Hopefully the architects have learned from such as this.



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How would the balloons be safer than a building?

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How would the balloons be safer than a building?

well if a balloon falls to earth only the weight of the payload and balloon could do damage.

if a 62 mile high building falls
62 miles...SPACE starts here at 100 kilometers

then you have 62 miles of building and payload and probably thousands of people falling on other people possibly even other states depending on location.

even a building that would be as high as the highest recorded gas balloon flights altitude would be practcally impossible to build.

Quote:
Unmanned gas balloon
The altitude record for unmanned balloons was (1991 edition of Guinness Book) 51.8 km (170,000 ft). The vehicle was a Winzen-Balloon with a volume of 1.35 million cubic metres, which was launched in October 1972 in Chico, California, USA.

In 2002 Japan achieved a new record: an ultra-thin-film balloon named BU60-1 made of polyethylene film 3.4 µm thick with a volume of 60,000 m³ was launched from Sanriku Balloon Center at 6:35 on May 23, 2002. The balloon kept ascending slowly at a speed of 260 m per minute and successfully reached the altitude of 53.0 km (174,000 ft), establishing a new world record for the first time in 30 years.[4]



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_altitude_record

that is why I think that a combination of balloon and nano ribbon would be the best solution today with todays "used"
technology.

this is what the view would look like from the top of the building.



view from the top of the empire state building







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It wouldn't be impossible to build, just very difficult. We would have to find an area which is not plagued with too much seismic activity, and then the building would have to have a very large base, and yes the building would have to have new construction techniques to complete it, and yes it would have to be air tight at the top, but once it was finished we would have a docking port for space craft to be readily re-supplied, and re-fueled, and re-fitted. Other countries would either have to build one or more of their own to keep up with the USA or they would have to pay for use of ours. It keeps being mentioned that this building could come down, but other than the twin towers which were struck by planes how many other skyscrapers have fallen without planned demolition?

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Originally Posted By: Rallem
It wouldn't be impossible to build, just very difficult. We would have to find an area which is not plagued with too much seismic activity, and then the building would have to have a very large base, and yes the building would have to have new construction techniques to complete it, and yes it would have to be air tight at the top, but once it was finished we would have a docking port for space craft to be readily re-supplied, and re-fueled, .............>


Originally Posted By: Mike Kremer


Yikes ! Thats some massive building Paul is proposing.
At 62 miles high, I think it would need a base at least 62 miles in diameter. Just where is this huge volume of material going to come from? Thats the volume of a cone 62 h X 62 base diam in miles.
I think I'd rather go for the Travelator cable constucted out of C.Nano Fibre.
At least the centrifical force of it being pulled around by the Earth would keep it straight and under tension.
Come to think of it.....instead of the Travelator cable anchored at the Equator, would it be subject to less tension (i.e less centrifical force) were it anchored at, or near the N or S pole??
I cant figure that one out.....any ideas anyone?





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Originally Posted By: Mike Kremer
Come to think of it.....instead of the Travelator cable anchored at the Equator, would it be subject to less tension (i.e less centrifical force) were it anchored at, or near the N or S pole??
I cant figure that one out.....any ideas anyone?

Being at the equator, it could, in effect, be in geostationary orbit. It would need an extension of height beyond the geostationary satellite zone in order to counterbalance the weight of materials extending downward, but this would offer an additional advantage for vehicles launching at the upper extremity owing to the relatively high tangential force serving to oppose gravity.

I think we can safely say that such a project would be unworkable in the polar regions.


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Mike

Quote:
Yikes ! Thats some massive building Paul is proposing.


it wasnt me , I think its a stupid idea.
by the time they got half way finished they would need to
begin replacing everything from the bottom up.

I was proposing balloons and nano ribbons and the iss.





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Originally Posted By: paul

to Mike

Quote:
Yikes ! Thats some massive building Paul is proposing.

Originally Posted By: Mike Kremer

Paul stated:-
"It wasnt me , I think its a stupid idea.
by the time they got half way finished they would need to
begin replacing everything from the bottom up"

I was proposing balloons and nano ribbons and the iss.

My apologies to you Paul. Mistaken identity





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