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Rockets help build Chinese bridge higher than Empire State Building
- newsycaccount 18y agoSo if I lay a plank over the 300ft deep well on my property, it is "a bridge higher than a 30 story building"?
- palish 18y agoYes.
- alexandros 18y agothe article says the bridghe is that high -above- the ground. The depth below is not factored in, at least as I read it.
- ComputerGuru 18y agothe deck of the bridge has just recently been connected over the valley below and is so high above the ground that you could fit the empire state building underneath it, and still have 360ft spare. No, they're referring to the distance from the lowest point in the valley... so, yes, the plank over the well would be on-par with this Chinese innovation.
- nfg 18y agoOnly if he used a rocket to lay the plank.
- potatolicious 18y agoAnd only if his well diameter is some 1+ km across.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- alexandros 18y agoTouche. I read that 'and' as starting a new unrelated characteristic where 'ground' was bridge level. Reading it again, you are right.
- eucalyptus 18y agoThat's really cool.
- alexandros 18y agoThis really goes to show that the chinese can and do innovate, contrary to the preconception.
- electromagnetic 18y agoI saw a documentary on the building of the bypass bridge near the Hoover dam. They used a helicopter to fly the cable over, had to wait for it to be dead calm as it was carrying near its max capacity and it still took like two hours for them to do it. I think they almost lost the chopper too. Using a rocket is probably much more cost effective and probably more akin to how bridges used to be made. I mean look at the rope bridges the Mayan's made, some are way too wide for someone to easily throw a rope across, so they probably tied a guide rope to an arrow and fired it across. You can probably transfer a heavier cable using a rocket than a helicopter, allowing the real work to commence earlier. I mean imagine how long it takes to drag increasingly thicker cables over a couple of kilometers of ravine.
- wensing 18y agoYes, except that, as with the Beijing Olympics, I can't shake the knowledge that as they perform these marvelous feats, deep problems linger.
- chaostheory 18y agoas with the 3 gorges dam, I have a bad feeling about any shortcuts or cost cutting methods taken... seems that even with the threat of the death penalty for company officials, it still doesn't stop shady practices
- zcoelius 18y agoThis looks like digg. What is happening to this site?
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- breily 18y agoThis seems pretty innovative, but how do they stop the rockets when they get to the other side? Seems like a very dangerous method.
- trickjarrett 18y agoGiant catchers mitt ordered from ACME! In all seriousness, the mountain takes care of that for them I suspect. It's probably burned all the fuel in flight and thus they just have to stand clear once it lands on the other side.
- tlrobinson 18y agoTie the other end of the cable down, make sure it's the appropriate length?
- sh1mmer 18y agoI constantly find the Chinese inspiring. Their construction seem to span an interesting divide between high tech and low tech. Their high availability of cheap labor being one of the primary factors enabling construction which would be considered prohibitive in the western world.
- Prrometheus 18y agoWell, duh, they have Yao Ming.
- halo 18y agoThis is a natural extension of an idea that dates back centuries. One old-fashioned way to build a suspension bridge is to use a bow-and-arrow to get an initial rope across. Once that's done, you can attach a stronger rope to the end of it and pull it across. This is the exact same solution in a more high-tech guise.