Why bother with space elevators, when you could be staying in a skyscraper that is suspended from an orbiting asteroid? Clouds Architecture Office’s latest project, called “Analemma,” is a skyscraper powered by space-based solar panels, and is capable of capturing water in a semi-closed loop system that draws from the moisture in clouds and rainwater. How does it work? Well, a large orbiting asteroid is first set on a figure-eight geosynchronous path that moves between the north / south hemispheres on a predictable daily loop. The skyscraper would then suspended from the asteroid using a high-strength cable, enabling residents to parachute down to work when the orbit slows, and gets closest to midtown Manhattan.
The proposed building is split into four main areas: business activities at the lower end of the tower, sleeping quarters placed approximately two-thirds of the way up, prayer rooms at the very top of the building, and surface transfer points at the bottom. The tower would be prefabricated in Dubai – which the architects say is ‘a specialist in tall building construction at one-fifth the cost of New York City construction’ – and the modules transported and assembled above earth.
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