Re: [Sci.nanotech] Slightly OT: Cloud Nines



Toby Kelsey <toby.kelsey@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
Perry E. Metzger wrote:
A buckysphere a mile across, with appropriate strength of materials,
produced by conventional construction techniques, could not be
significantly less expensive to build than, say, a suspension bridge a
mile across. (In fact, it would almost certainly be many times more
expensive.) A suspension bridge a mile or more across is a
multibillion dollar item. So, we're talking about billions of dollars
in expense, even before you start putting in the houses etc.

A conventional self-supported structure like a bridge or skyscraper
requires higher technology and gets more expensive per unit volume
with size due to well-known scaling laws relating strength and mass.
That is why your bridge is expensive. However a skin supported by
buoyancy need not get more expensive per unit area with size once an
adequate level of collision and wind protection is reached, so the
cost does not increase in the same way.

A buckysphere on the order of a mile across has something on the order
three square miles of steel trusswork.

I suggest that you sit down with a calculator and figure out how much
money the steel alone will cost.

--
Perry E. Metzger perry@xxxxxxxxxxxx

.

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