Mark Megahan
Who says the foundation for a building has to be at the bottom? A team of engineers commissioned by Saudi Arabia are working to flip architecture on its head. They’re doing it by capturing an asteroid, moving it into the proper orbit, then dangling the worlds tallest tower at the bottom. Using an insanely long set of cables. This isn’t science fiction, it’s an actual work in progress.
Hang a building from space
Clouds Architecture Office calls their building Analemma Tower. Not only does it dwarf even the largest of Earth’s skyscrapers, the tower is envisioned as a self-contained city.
The engineering team of Ostap Rudakevych, Masayuki Sono and Kevin Huang like to brag that “Analemma inverts the traditional diagram of an earth-based foundation.” Instead, the supporting foundation is “space based.”
The idea has been around for a long time. For over half a century the experts have been trying to work the bugs out of a “space elevator,” which uses the same principals. Analemma is only half of the engineering challenge as the elevator, because the tower building simply has to hang there.
A “skyhook” elevator would require two cables stretching out from a central spinning asteroid. With huge hooks on each end to catch a capsule and spin it up to orbit on each downswing.
The “Universal Orbital Support System” which the Saudi’s are designing will string a network of high strength cable stretching from the captured rock toward the earth’s surface. At the end of the cables, acting as a huge plum bob, sits “a super tall tower.”
Construction will begin in Dubai, “which has proven to be a specialist in tall building construction.” The tower itself is expected to tally in at “one fifth the cost of New York City construction.” Once it’s built, the tower will fly over New York daily.
Geosynchronous orbit
The building is expected to fly in a figure-eight pattern for stability. The captured asteroid would sit in a “geosynchronous orbit” that matches earth’s rotation. Business will be “conducted at the lower end of the tower.”
That’s so the executives can look down on their groundhog competitors. Sleeping quarters are planned for “approximately 2/3 of the way up.” To make the devout happy, “devotional activities are scattered along the highest reaches” where they can be closer to God.
“Surface transfer points” will be designed everywhere to “take advantage of high topography.” You can exit the building by flying out or skydiving, if you prefer.
“The size and shape of windows changes with height to account for pressure and temperature differentials.” Those at the top of the tower get an extra 40 minutes of daylight “due to the curvature of the earth.”
The “eccentric geosynchronous orbit” planned will allow the building to “travel between the northern and southern hemispheres on a daily loop.”
That makes a difference because “the tower would move at its slowest speed at the top and bottom of the figure eight allowing the possibility for the tower’s occupants to interface with the planet’s surface at these points.” In other words, the building is easier to catch by those entering from the ground.
