Eco-city 2020. Image: Dvice.com.
Report on Dvice.com via i09: "A Russian company has unveiled plans to build a gigantic domed city in an abandoned diamond mine in Siberia. The city, named Eco-city 2020, would be constructed inside the Mir diamond mine, the second largest excavated hole on the planet. It's a quarter-mile wide at the top and over 1,700 feet deep, which is so big that air flowing into the hole can actually suck helicopters out of the sky. If the project gets going, the mine would be completely covered over with a glass dome to protect the city from the weather in Siberia (which is apparently lousy almost all the time), and solar cells embedded in the dome would provide power for the entire structure. Eco-city would be constructed of multiple levels, with a huge central core. The main floor would hold parks and recreation areas, with residential areas terracing up around the walls of the mine. Underneath would be space for vertical farms and forests, subsiding on light piped down the central core. An estimated 100,000 people would be able to live in Eco-city, and architects are hoping that it would help to attract tourists to Eastern Siberia." For other schematics and reports, go here and here.
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The Russians are doing this, the Chinese and Indians are trying to get to the moon.
ReplyDeleteWhat, exactly, is the US doing? Is the ESA doing? Yes yes, Hubble telescope this, meteorite probe that. But what are we *really* doing?
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step; that being so? Let's get started.
Because I have an interest in these things, I remember quite clearly what the thrust of the Bush administration was prior to 9/11. They had made it a priority to build up the space program and send men to Mars, develop a moon base, and so on. Now the talk in those circles involves the hybridization of public and private interests to achieve these goals under US leadership. Also some people are talking about sending astronauts on a one-way death mission to win the race to Mars, which to me is kind of not such a great way to achieve that milestone. But public and private interests overlapping is exactly what Kim Stanley Robinson hypothesized would happen regarding Mars exploration. Of course there are parallel plans in other countries to try to get humans to Mars.
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