Well, I'm back after a week away... including 14 hour plane
flights (blech, phooey), where are the supersonic planes???
noticing the thread abundance, AI/EI/IA, cryonics, more
AI/EI/AI, cryonics, and then a bicycle discussion?!?
I think some of the folks on the list need to get out more.
In an effort to bring some variety to the list... The
Conde Nast Traveler March 2K issue had an interesting
look at "The Next 7 Wonders", including the
"Burj Al Arab" hotel, an interesting view of which
can be found at:
http://www.class1.worldoffshore.com/results99/dubai/images.htm
or
http://www.travel-news.org/mideast.html (somewhat slow)
Gets my vote as the coolest place to stay.
Of interest that came up when researching the Burj, was an article
about water fountains:
http://www.pmengineer.com/archives/9907Feature.htm
I saw the Bellagio Fountains in Dec. with Robert Freitas when
we were walking around Las Vegas. Very very cool. If the Burj
fountains are comparable, it is clearly a destination worth visiting.
Query: How many Extropians would be interested in and able to attend
an Extropy convention at a "destination" location (e.g. the Burj, if
they had a year or two of advance notice to budget for the trip???)
[For reference, Seattle to Dubai(RT):$~1500 + 4 nights @ $258/n = $~2500
+ conference fee: $500 = $~3000?.]
It seems that one interesting strategy for the Extropy Institute
in a "propaganda" mode would be to promote highly visible conferences
at "name" destinations that would encourage imaginative thinking.
One of the 7 wonders was the new
"Bibliotheca Alexandrina",
see:
http://www.unesco.org/webworld/alexandria_new/
including Real-Player and VRML pointers.
And then finally of interest is the cruise ship "Voyager of the Sea"
(@ 142,000 tons), holding 3,838 passengers, roughly the size of
the Empire State Building...
Now... In relation to "big things humans build".... is an article...
"The Tsiolkovski Tower Re-examined" (Jnl. British Interplanetary
Soc. 52:175-180 (1999)), by Geoffry A. Landis and Craig Cafarelli.
(Landis is at the NASA Lewis Research Center in Ohio).
The abstract:
"It is possible to make a tower which extends upwards from the surface
of the Earth into space. An equation for the taper ratio of such
a tower is calculated under the assumption that the taper is chosen
so that the stress in the material is independent of height.
The mass of the tower will then depend on the height of the material
chosen. For a structure extending all the way to geosynchronous
orbit, the mass of a compression structure of the tower and the
characteristic stength-to-density ratio ("tower") is less than that
of a tension structure ("skyhook") for the same ratio of strength
to density. A structure which connects a tension structure at high
altitiudes with a compression structure at low altitudes has lower mass
than either a tension or compression structure alone. A mass of 3.5
million tons was calculated for such a structure sized to carry a payload
of 22.7 tons, using graphite-epoxy construction. Towers of height
less than geosynchronous orbit were also examined. A 2280 km tall
tower was shown to be feasible with current materials technology, with
a mass of only 365 tons."
Lets see, 142,000 tons vs. 3.5 million tons, so for 25x the cost of
a vacation cruise ship we can build a tower that can support hoisting
into geosynchronous orbit masses of 22.7 tons (space shuttle payloads).
Hmmmm, sounds like the "Burj Al Arab" is just built a little too low,
but I wouldn't mind visiting there until we get the Space Tower off
the ground.
Robert
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