Slightly OT: Cloud Nines


I was googling Buckminster Fuller and found this. Unfortunately, I couldn't
find any real details.

Are these things doable? If so, why hasn't one been built yet/


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_nine_%28Tensegrity_sphere%29
Cloud nine (Tensegrity sphere)
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Cloud nines are airborne habitats first proposed by Buckminster Fuller.
Fuller proposed that giant geodesic spheres might be made to levitate by
heating the air inside.

Geodesic spheres (structures of triangular components arranged to make a
sphere) become stronger as they become bigger, due to how they distribute
stress over their surfaces. Because of this, they may be imagined on
colossal scales.

As a sphere gets bigger, the volume it encloses grows much faster than the
volume of the enclosing structure itself. Fuller suggested that the mass of
a mile-wide geodesic sphere would be negligible compared to the mass of the
air trapped within it. He suggested that if the air inside such a sphere
were heated even by one degree higher than the ambient temperature of its
surroundings, the sphere could become airborne. He calculated that such a
balloon could lift a considerable mass, and hence that 'mini-cities' or
airborne towns of thousands of people could be built in this way. These
'cloud nines' could be tethered, or free-floating, or perhaps maneuverable
so that they could 'migrate' in response to climatic and environmental
conditions.




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