Alaurentia proposes to build hovering capital city

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Saw this, this morning.

In an announcement that is reminiscent of Castlevania and Star Trek together, the President of Alaurentia has stated that the north american micronation is designing a futuristic castle that could hover above the ground, and actually change location.

The idea is that instead of building the tower like a conventional skyscraper, which would be heavy, the President proposes to build it like a Zeppelin, and make the structures large and buoyant, cancelling out most of their weight. Like a tree, the thing would have a small base, and expand into branches far above the ground, so to reduce the occupied area on the surface.

According to the announcement:

The structure is being designed with self-sufficiency and efficiency in mind, and would most likely include branches to capture uprising air convection currents, solar panels to convert sunlight to electricity, and inner "forests" for inside air quality. Possibilities to make the structure compatible with travel across a vacuum, in other words, possibilities of making the structure act as a spaceship, are also being explored.

What are you guys' opinions? Could such an idea, as far-fetched as it sounds, actually work?

I’ve never even heard of the place

There’s no way I’d be one of the first residents but I wish them them the best of luck

a reply to: swanne

Cool idea, but how can anything be sturdy enough to support people/cars/etc and be light enough to be cancelled out?

I looked into this place, their leader is "The Dragon" and their real identity is unknown. Are we are this is not some Japanime movie?

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
a reply to: swanne

Cool idea, but how can anything be sturdy enough to support people/cars/etc and be light enough to be cancelled out?

I looked into this place, their leader is "The Dragon" and their real identity is unknown. Are we are this is not some Japanime movie?

Well, according to wiki, they have a population of 21, so it wouldn't be all that large.

I cant help but wonder what the purpose would be though. For the cost, and effort they could buy a nice tropical island.

originally posted by: IkNOwSTuff
I’ve never even heard of the place

There’s no way I’d be one of the first residents but I wish them them the best of luck

"The mind of the subject will desperately struggle to create memories where none exist..." -Barriers to Trans-Dimensional Travel, R. Lutece, 1889

"I'll get back to you after I figure out the floating city bit." -Booker

This is all so exciting, yes? I do hope there are BFG's to be found.

a reply to: Mach2

They take applications from all over the world. So 21 wouldn't cut it if they built an actual city.

originally posted by: Mach2

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
a reply to: swanne

Cool idea, but how can anything be sturdy enough to support people/cars/etc and be light enough to be cancelled out?

I looked into this place, their leader is "The Dragon" and their real identity is unknown. Are we are this is not some Japanime movie?

Well, according to wiki, they have a population of 21, so it wouldn't be all that large.

I cant help but wonder what the purpose would be though. For the cost, and effort they could buy a nice tropical island.

Are you mad? It's a lot easier to build a floating city than it is to float an island.

and if this city supports 21 people, then 10 of them can support 200+ people. Just imagine it, a world full of floating cities, free of the detritus of the everyday peons below, wailing and crying about everything. We'd be a virtual paradise. A Paradise.

Just hope I don't fall off.

a reply to: gallop

It would only take 10 cities to have 200 people! 210 even! If America cut it's population down to about .00001% of what it is we could all live that way!

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
a reply to: gallop

It would only take 10 cities to have 200 people! 210 even! If America cut it's population down to about .00001% of what it is we could all live that way!

I'm pretty sure that multiple parties have currently active plans to cut America's population as you describe.

ganjoa

originally posted by: ganjoa

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
a reply to: gallop

It would only take 10 cities to have 200 people! 210 even! If America cut it's population down to about .00001% of what it is we could all live that way!

I'm pretty sure that multiple parties have currently active plans to cut America's population as you describe.

ganjoa

Excellent post.

The sad thing is that as well as being hilariously facetious, it is also true.

a reply to: swanne

What are you guys' opinions?

It sounds like a castle in the sky.

people are aware that " Alaurentia " is simply a delusion floating < pun intended > around the head of its " president "[ who is self appointed - and its only citizen ] . dont hold your breath waiting for teh " sky city "

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
a reply to: gallop

It would only take 10 cities to have 200 people! 210 even! If America cut it's population down to about .00001% of what it is we could all live that way!

Now you're getting it. We don't want the riff raff up there with us. Only us pure lot.

Sky dwellers will not suffer dirt eaters. pthooey.

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
a reply to: swanne

Cool idea, but how can anything be sturdy enough to support people/cars/etc and be light enough to be cancelled out?

I looked into this place, their leader is "The Dragon" and their real identity is unknown. Are we are this is not some Japanime movie?

graphene probably? maybe they are like a hidden wakanda tribe they are not able to mask a deep space vessel of the size they want, so they are pretending its a floating fortress till its done

a reply to: swanne

I was intrigued and had a look for this supposed nation, it's really like some fan's of D&D got together and declared themselves a nation but is actually not a place in the usual sense of the word.
Basically they have taken the name of an ancient geological formation, a microcontinental mass called a Craton, the north American Craton to be precise and used it as the basis of there imaginary nation's name, there so called presidents is a self appointee.

Got to say I wonder if there is some form of financial incentive here, create a paper nation that does not actually exist and is not recognized by anyone and try to get it recognized as a nation by someone in order to be able to find loopholes in the laws of the US, Canada and Greenland and be able to then swindle tax and use it as a paper money financial scam.

Since the nation does not exist I suppose the fact there pretend capital city does not is ok then and they can imaginarily build there city as high up as they like, the fact is though this could merely be a mean's to try to get really dumb folk to invest in this and make the so called president a rich guy?.

Not meaning to be horrible to them as like I say they may just be bored D&D fan's but that is how I read into it.

I can personally confirm that Alaurentia has way more than one citizen. I am Alaurentian, I actually wrote the Constitution and I am a teacher there.

But this thread is not about Alaurentia, it's about the idea of a tower that could use aeronautical engineering. I just wanted to know if you guys think it's theoretically possible. Pure academical question, simple enough: can you make a tower lighter than air using Zeppelin-like structures, or are the laws of physics disagreeing?

a reply to: swanne

Of course you could. You would just have to give up a lot. You would need a football sized area of buoyancy for every house sized area of habitable space. I come to that conclusion due to it taking a football sized airship to move 50tons. A house weighs about 50tons. That is a house sans foundation. I would guess that leaves about 3% of the city as habitable space and 97% of it would be reserved for the zeppelin like structures area.

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

Interesting!

Could you switch things around and use the surface area as habitable space? I am thinking, a large flat balloon (for lack of better word, I'm not an engineer), this would in theory have a lot of tension, enough to be relatively solid, and use this as a ground?

a reply to: swanne

I preface this by saying I am not an engineer. I would think you would want to consolidate habitable area, the reason for this is because then you can share resources. An example would be water. If you disperse the habitable areas you now need to pipe water to all those areas. You need sanitation in all those areas. That's my thought at least.

The other problem with your idea is what happens if the balloon deflates? You need a structure where it does not need to be inflated at all times. At the very least maintenance is going to be performed, so you can't use the surface tension of the balloon.

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

Hmmmm, you're right, actually. Those are very good points.

We'd need wonder materials.

There's this Air Crete thing that's somewhat promising, especially now we know the recipe, but I wonder how brittle Air Crete could become as larger sheets.