I started making sketches of how a guy-wire stabilized tower might look and came to realize that the natural frequency response might be the most challenging aspect of the engineering optimization. We’re not talking about a typical guy’d tower in which there are maybe a half dozen to a dozen lines. We’re talking about thousands of guys of many…[Read more]

I really like this idea for several reasons.

1) The guy-wired concept allows expanding the footprint of the tower with far less cost and structural weight.

2) Separating the tension and compression elements of the tower into distinct, single-function elements allows those structural elements to be more optimized than if they had to be…[Read more]

This is just a second the suggestion above. If the regolith is first ground to a fine powder then sintering could additively build the structure. It’s not new technology. I’ve personally structurally sized parts made from laser sintered thermoplastic and also from sintered titanium. It would consume more energy and be more expensive than a bin…[Read more]

Expanding on Bruce’s second suggestion, perhaps sunrise after one of those long, long winter nights really could be a religious experience for some people or groups. What your own take on that kind of tourist offering might be (if it fits the story at all), I don’t know. But I’m offering it in the spirit of not being dismissive of the worth…[Read more]

Have you considered using ice as not the only, but as one of your hotel’s building materials? Building with ice is a pretty age-old concept, of course, but perhaps your hotel could employee that idea on a grander scale. I did a science fair experiment with my daughter once in which we strength-tested beams of ice (simply supported at ends, and…[Read more]

A follow-on post, from a different perspective:

Suppose that I’m told by my boss that he’s already been sold on the idea of building a huge tower by extruding it from the ground up. He doesn’t want my opinion of the project; he only wants my thoughts about how to make it happen. In general terms, that’s a realistic scenario, and one which I…[Read more]

My engineering gut reaction is that, even for a tower going up into human-unfriendly territory, I’d rather build in the traditional manner than deal with cost/complexity/risk of extruding up from ground level. But I’m speaking for the engineers, not the poor construction workers. But there’s certainly no law of physics that contradicts the propo…[Read more]