From: Horkheimer (hork_at_execpc.com)
Date: 04/24/98
Message-ID: <35410D71.2E98A147@execpc.com> Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 17:08:50 -0500 From: Horkheimer <hork_at_execpc.com> Subject: Re: floating houses / floating villages
Hello,
> -so, what's my economic motivation for building this monster in the
> -first place?
>
Well as in the long-term people are looking at the Pacific Rim a lot for future
money. I see the fact that these places have massive and growing populations
but their land size is staying the same. Once Asia gets back on its feet I
would go there for investors. If you look at the housing ideas coming from
Asia, they are about as wild and unbelievable as this possible floating city of
house. I don't think for another 50 years or so will we see demand for this
kind of thing here in America as we would see in Asia. I believe I read once
that if America stopped immigration completely, our population growth would
basically level out. Industrialization and modernization have a habit
decreasing the number of people born in one family.
> Why did we spend billions to put a man on the Moon? Where's the
> economic rationale for that? There wasn't one. It was a nationalistic pride
> thing. There have been lots of spinoff technologies from the act, but they
> weren't the economic motivator.
To talk about big projects and spin-offs all we have to do is look Hughes'
seaplane or Spruce Goose. It costed the government some 60 million I believe
and it costed Hughes another 20 million from his own pocket, it only lifted of
the ground once some 80 ft and Hughes then grounded the thing so it could sit in
the perfect hangar waiting for its masters return. No everyone said this was a
waste, but Noah Dietrich, Hughes' accountant said it was great economic success,
because of all the construction patents and the royalties that came with the
patent. That engineered wood in your house was probably based off a patent
originally developed to build the airplane and some of the cost was a royalty.
>
> larger domes that have been constructed weigh less ONCE THEY ARE
> CONSTRUCTED than their components weighed before building began. This is
> due to the lifting force of the air mass inside the completed dome.
I think the structure is the only cost here, are we having engines? We all
could build a simple cheap structure for such a thing, and rent out space. We
just need to build a large dome it may cost a lot, but I think for its volume it
would be the cheapest.
Don
Horkheimer