A group of New York-based architects have released an amazing new design of a skyscraper that could be built to hang from an asteroid.
The futuristic project is the work of Clouds Architecture Office who specialise in what they say are futuristic but workable designs.
The Analemma Tower, would be the largest tower ever constructed and hang from an asteroid 50,000 kilometres in space. The asteroid itself would be harnessed to Earth's orbit.
The tower would be suspended from heavy-duty cables and work as a skyscraper would on Earth, complete with living accommodation, dining areas, shopping centres and offices. In effect, the skyscraper would be a huge floating city.
The tower itself would take on rainwater from clouds and be powered through solar energy.
The architects cite the fact that NASA already plans to redirect an asteroid in 2021 and that many futurists believe that the use of asteroids will become commonplace in the future.
The company states on its website:
"Analemma can be placed in an eccentric geosynchronous orbit which would allow it to travel between the northern and southern hemispheres on a daily loop. The ground trace for this pendulum tower would be a figure eight, where the tower would move at its slowest speed at the top and bottom of the figure eight allowing the possibility for the towers occupants to interface with the planet's surface at these points. The proposed orbit is calibrated so the slowest part of the towers trajectory occurs over New York City."
Adding:
"Analemma would get its power from space-based solar panels. Installed above the dense and diffuse atmosphere, these panels would have constant exposure to sunlight, with a greater efficiency than conventional PV installations. Water would be filtered and recycled in a semi-closed loop system, replenished with condensate captured from clouds and rainwater. Developments in cable-less electromagnetic elevators have effectively shattered height restrictions imposed by elevator cable spool volume."
[h/t: IFL Science]
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