No, this picture doesn’t show a black and white image of the rebel base on the ice planet Hoth. It’s part of a semi-secret, nuclear-powered U.S. Army base that was built under the Greenland ice cap only 800 miles from the North Pole. The base was officially built to conduct scientific research but the real reason was apparently to test out the feasibility of burying nuclear missiles below the ice under an effort known as Project Iceworm. Remember, Greenland is way closer to Russia than the ICBM fields located in the continental U.S. Rumor has it that the Danish government had no idea that the U.S. was considering installing nuclear missiles on Greenland.
The 200-man base was massive , described by some as an underground city, and consisted of 21 steel-arch covered trenches; the longest of which was 1,100-feet long, 26-feet wide and 26-feet high. These tunnels contained numerous prefabricated buildings that were up to 76-feet long. The base was powered by a portable PM-2A nuclear reactor that produced two megawatts of power for the facility.
In all, the base featured:
Living quarters, a kitchen and mess hall, latrines and showers, a recreation hall and theater, a library and hobby shops, a dispensary, operating room and a ten bed infirmary, a laundry facility, a post exchange, scientific labs, a cold storage warehouse, storage tanks, a communications center, equipment and maintenance shops, supply rooms and storage areas, a nuclear power plant, a standby diesel-electric power plant, administrative buildings, utility buildings, a chapel and a barbershop.
The base operated from 1959 to 1966 when shifting icecap made living there impossible. Today, it’s buried and crushed beneath the Arctic snows.
Click through the jump to see more pictures of the base and to watch a great video on its construction. The last photo shows a map of the base’s location in Greenland.
{ 135 comments… read them below or add one }
Pretty sure nobody is going to try UrbEx'ing…
Ohhhh Waoooooo…awesome
All of the hidden/unknown things that happened in the Cold War era are so damn interesting!
its not all that hidden/unknown, at least not for the last 15 years.
Where did they hide the ion cannon?
Or the shield generator?
You get to it via the South Entrance.
Interesting idea but too bad the ice destroyed so much wonder whats left???
I guess we know where Alistair MacLean got the idea for Ice Station Zebra. And I hope (and I'm sure the Danes do as well) that we packed up the reactor and took it home with us before we abandoned the base!
Everything was fine with this base until AT-ATs launched an attack.
Hahaha!!! Awesome! I was thinking the same thing!!!!
oh my god the communists have AT-ATs we're all screwed
Damn that General Veers.
Where is the Rebel Base?
Somewhere on the third planet in the Hoth system…
COST?
Who cares we're the government!
Are you some kind of pinko commie! NO COST WAS TOO HIGH! LOL
This like James Bond /SPECTRE type stuff. Like "You only live twice" & the Rocket base in a Japanese Volcano. How come we can build a nuclear powered Ice base in the 1950's; Yet, in 2012 No World Trade Center replacement still????
Leadership.
Because difficulty of building a structure increases exponentially when you build them vertically instead of spread over wide area.
Aside of that, there was significant delay in order to agree on the design of the replacement structure and the security of it, they finally agreed on them on 2006 so only 6 years ago did the construction of the replacement tower started in earnest.
WTC structure (both old and new) were MASSIVE structure, not some regular skyscrapper you can build in 2-3 years. But currently the One World Trade Center building is already in late stage construction and will be finished by next year.
Not true. American architects have designed taller and more complex skyscrapers in China and yet many of those highrises have been completed within 2 years. Same for some complex designs by European architects in China. To illustrate, China's Capital International Airport terminal 3 is more sophisticated, and far bigger than the entire London Heathrow (5 terminals), and yet the former was finished in 4 years, under budget, months ahead of schedule, whereas the smaller, less complex Terminal 5 of the latter alone took 19 years from conception to completion, and was vastly over budget at 4 billion pounds.
Oh certainly you can go behind schedules and over budget etc,
BUT
before we go and consider that, you have to clarify what you mean by taller and more complex skyscrappers because few highrise building with One WTC dimensions are around so you have a few explaining to do there.
Architecturally there is nothing special or difficult about the new One WTC (designed by SOM of Chicago) – it's of the same height as the old north tower, with a longer spire added to boost the height to 1776 feet. It's over 80 feet shorter than the Sears Tower (built 1970-193) when measured by roof height.
Burj Khalifa is currently the highest building at 830 meters (2723+ feet), also designed by SOM of Chicago, but was completed in less than 7 years. The much shorter and simpler One WTC has already taken 8 years.
incidentally and interestingly enough, despite sizing larger than entire Heathrow, BCIA's Terminal 3 only adds 43 million passenger per year capacity…
Heathrow's Problematic (and certainly most troublesome) Terminal 5 despite it's relatively small size compared to BCIA terminal 3 has a capacity of 30million passenger per year.
total Heathrow capacity is 90million passenger per year after Terminal 5 which oddly enough is well above BCIA's capacity of 78million per year including it's terminal 3.
false information
The Sky Tree in Tokyo is already done. Built under conditions that make the WTC replacement look like child’s play.
Indeed, but do consider as well that Sky Tree is pretty much that… a tower, with minimal floor area.
In contrast with buildings like Burj Khalifa etc which is not just a tower structure but a full sized commercial building with massive floor space to accommodate the occupant.
Still, earthquake proofing such tall structure was an impressive feat.
holy tangent batman-can we get back to the subject at hand? ;-D
How come we can build nuclear powered ice bases in the 1950's; Yet, in 2012 we can't have universal healthcare in a 1st world country?
because you can't put a cost to applying healthcare to moronic public, regardless in which country.
unless you want to pretend to have 'healthcare' by skimping as much of it as possible to the bare minimum that can still be labelled 'healthcare'
It's because contrary to public illusion, the US government is NOT a government of the people, by the people, for the people.
Because “if you don’t work, you don’t eat.” Capitalism. You want everything given to you, go to a socialist country
You don't know what you are talking about. (obviously a victim of the mainstream media)
The US is a socialist country !!!!!! (e.g. taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich — wrong direction, granted, but still socialist in nature).
In some respects, the US is a communist country (e.g. distributing gambling losses of the incompetent, reckless banking corporations to the masses).
If you want real capitalism, go to China.
It was around this time we sent the Triton around the world…
You mean like in Europe, where health care comes down to the smallest common denominator, and where, if you want the top notch, really good stuff, you have to pay for it yourself anyway?
Despite of what American liberals may think, healthcare in the EU has massive issues by now. All countries are bankrupt (yeah, they are, every country has a rising national debt thanks to decades of neo-socialist spending without control) and nationalized health insurances have been taking a dive for a while.
Government spending. The private sector won't drop a building into Antarctica for fun.
politicians
because the world trade center replacement involves civilian bureaucracy. everything is faster when you can just give an order and make it happen with out regard for cost, life, or limb.
Love to renovate & make into a Cold War Hotel alone.
& acess Canada from base too & have Ice tunnel for nuclear sub to enter city port for under ice tours. Awesome IF renovated using prefab modules.
Radical,
$$$$$$
…the base shifted too much and was destroyed within years.
DEW: Distant Early Warning Line
BMEW: Ballistic Missile Early Warning Line (PAVPAWS).
Last time I checked, Russia had 10,000 nuclear weapons designed to strike the U.S. and her Allies (Bulletin of Atomic Scientists). China has not the commonly circulated 300 but 3,000 nukes. With Russia, these numbers are comparable to 1960s levels. The Grand Illusion, the Great Myth, is that there was an "End to the Cold War". With the unilateral disarmament of the West, you may very well discover the Muslim Turks or Russians steam rolling through Western Europe to the English Channel within weeks.
Very good observation.
That PRC "3,000 nuke" thing has been debunked. It originated with a professor and a bunch of college students, based on "potential" capability, which in turn was based on "estimated" storage capcity – NOT production capacity. I read the report – it was well-written and convincing, but unltimately based on the wrong set of assumptions. That being said, 300 nukes is still 300 nukes!!!
both 300 and 3000 are unverifiable figures. The only question is which figure is likely to be closer to the actual quantity.
And do you think with the spy camera's in space that can spot a ball bearing the Americans wouldn't notice something was up when they started to fuel up 300 or 3000 missiles
Johnny, do you have any remote idea of the destructive potential of even a small nuke? 300 nuclear devices, each independently targeted on a major US City? Are you SURE that there are "only 300 nukes"? Because I've seen and heard a lot of stuff in the last few years that'd "been debunked", so….
No big deal. Pretty much every major country today could destroy the world a thousand times if it wanted to by starting a nuclear war (even if you don’t have weapons, it can’t be so difficult to convince one that does to do it).
Or you might find nothing of the sort happening in the several years since the USA and USSR started reducing their stockpiles.
Also, your counting is seriously off. START 1 limits Russia to less than 4000 warheads, and New START cuts that figure down.
And… Turkey? Seriously?
Turkey has a smallish professional army and its own arms industry. Perhaps one of the few "Middle Eastern" countries that can reliably make much of its weapons in-house.
Then again, just pick and choose any random Muslim country on a map to use for scaremongering. Oh my god, they have Constantinople and will be at Vienna next! It's 1453 all over again.
“What the Ottoman empire failed to achieve with its armies at both sieges of Vienna, we will achieve with our fertile women.” Erdogan’s own words. He also said that the mosques are their barracks, the minarets their bayonets and the domes their helmets. He called integration a “crime against humanity” and thanks to such ideas countries like Germany have a rising issue with Turkish immigrants who refuse to integrate themselves, learn the language, and don’t even respect the law of the land.
Europe is in for massive issues, thanks to mass-immigration of the wrong people. Mohammedans in general don’t adapt well to “infidel” societies. Not all, of course, but the rising tensions all across the EU show clearly that they aren’t content with the massive amount of tolerance and financial aid they’ve been getting for years. They want more. They want the countries as a whole. Give them the little finger and they cut off your arm.
They use both, so call "soft" and military force as well! Don't forget invasion of Cyprus in 1974, Turkish "humanitarian aid" during Bosnian war, than Kosovo war with active role of Turkey. Their F16 were part of the NATO forces. I'll use Kosovo as example: In the begging of the 20th century only 30% of Kosovo population were Albanians and now they are over 90%. They used "birth bomb" tactics, street riots, than terror and finally war. Same "birth bomb" tactic is used all over Europe, the number of Muslims growing in France, Germany, Netherlands, only UK is relatively safe, but I must say relatively. Last year there were riots in UK, previously in France and Germany, Denmark and so on. Now the faze of terror started(in France) and one day probably open war.
Also most of heroine comes to Europe from Muslim countries, raw opium produced in Afghanistan, labs are in Iran, than it goes to Turkey, and for final distribution Albanians. Part of money goes for wars and terror, but more importantly for bribing of politicians.
Another weapon are high oil prices with idea of destroying EU and US economy.
We were talking about Turks, and now it's Albanians? Muslim peril, Muslim peril…!
Hilarious
Pave PAWS and BMEWS were 2 different, separate systems. Both still exist (recently modernized) although there are now only 2 Pave PAWS sites instead of 4.
What, you mean those very same "Muslim Turks" who are trying to join the EU? American idiot.
This was on the history channel a few years back. The movie clips were awesome and the story was more in depth.
My uncle worked on the portable reactor, U-Illinois Physics grad, used to tell us stories of his time under the ice as a young physicist.
Today with the melting of ice , this will be so dangerous .
It was dangerous then for other reasons.
Bulls**t. The reactor was removed long ago. All that is left are old wooden buildings and some deformed metal braces. You are seriously deluded if you think the Greenland icecap is melting to a degree that would expose this old base.
I wondered the same thing, since the network of tunnels is allowing water up and making it so much worse. Here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/11…
http://gombessa.tripod.com/scienceleadstheway/id9…
Amusingly, Boy Scouts went to Camp Century.
The video at the bottom of the page is great
wasnt there underground airwing space also I remember landing there after Marine corp arctic missions
No, landings via copter or ski equiped planes
Speak English please.
Can you say secret underground Behive…from Resident Evil…the Zombie Apacylips lmao
I was thinking more of the Thing.
"the "speak English" was for Chuk uh sorry " chuck".
Please my brother that and all this zombie stuff is for kids and some or if not allot of people are cashing in on this trend for which this is. even i like the movie "Resident Evil" allot because the woman star is just so hot and tuff as nails.But that's it just a movie nothing more.
Awesome pics and article! Kudos.
I wood not like to be the one to have to live in that for 1 or 2 year.
i spent 31/2 months there in 1963 doing research as a drafted GI Elev of Camp was approx 6000 ft and coldest temp experienced was -57. Took emission readings on the nuclear plant and designed, built and operated the first wind-powered vehicle on the ice cap. It took a week to take supplies from a base on the west coast to the camp via Caterpillar D-8 and D-9 pulling large sleds and wagons
Imagine what the DUMBS look like now.
Now you said, it's not secret anymore, is it?
HUM !, This makes me WONDER about the story of undersea floating missle launchers that the USSR reportedly had off the EAST COAST, near the deep water. Part of this was believed to be to produce a type of tidal wave. TRUE ?, you tell me. Possible, in that day and time, (60's,70's) I doubt it, but truth is OFTEN stanger than fiction.
The Americans didn't have the chutzpah to put missile launchers into close range of the Soviet Union…unless they were on SSBNs. The risk of detection and capture are ridiculous. It's worth it for things like ELINT. But…
That is the plot from a seventies adventure novel you're remembering, "A Raft of Swords" by Duncan Kyle (also published as "The Suvarov Adventure"). I don't think it actually really happened.
There is a video on youtube of something like what you are describing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAXzicwhcHI
Thank God I got orders to W. Germany in the fall of '62 just before the Cuban Missile Crisis got going! I spent 30 months there at two helicopter bases, with great off duty fun…Frankfurt and later Stuttgart had some great beerhalls and pubs. This Greenland site is astounding….I wonder what other former "secrets" of the Cold War are out there.
I was there in 1961 and 1962 based at Camp Tuto-for a tour of duty 2 years-6 months on-6months back at Ft. Belvoir, VA. Capt. Paige was my company commander. By the way , did you know there is a lake located at the base camp of Camp Tuto called Tuto lake ? The lake w/o a bottom , as Navy divers put it. We used D9 Cats with 500 gal diesel tanks hooked on the front and delivered supplies to Camp Century. Also , had crevasse detectors mounted on the lead cat that looked like half round dishes that would pick up a signal. And, Swiss polecats to carry vips on tour-tall boxy looking cats w/radar and a unit for passengers behind it. The D9 cats had tracks 6' wide to keep it on top of any loose snow. I am now 73 yrs old and living in Boise, Id. CA
http://defensetech.org/2012/04/06/inside-the-army…
camp century video –
http://www.crrel.usace.army.mil/videos/DIMOC02606…
No women? No whiskey? Damn wat do you do 4 fun? I would go stir crazy. How bout YOU?
Semi-sweet I remember reading a book entitled Genesis about the flying saucer developement by the Nazis that was transported to South America in subs before the allies found the base and later took that developemnet down into the Antarctic under the ice cap. Great book and a lot more to it than this.
My guess is the black oil under the arctic and The Thing defeated the Nazis post WW2…
I worked at Century during the Spring of ~1967 studying the properties of polar snow of varying densities as exposed in the inclined drift (CRREL Research Report 276). The under-snow camp had been abandoned in 1966 as the result of creep closure problems so we lived on the surface. However the old camp was still accessable and Austin Kovacs took me on a tour of the old facilities. We were able to access the reactor site and look down into the melt well. Closure there was extreme presumably as the result of the thermal effect of the reactor. In 1969 Kovacs returned to Century and photographically documented the state of the under ice camp (see CRREL Special Report 150). Deformation was extreme. That may have been the last time anyone accessed the old camp. I would guess that access today would be impossible. I do not know exactly when the reactor was removed but it probably was prior to 1965. In 67 nothing remained. As far as this being an environmental threat, forget it !! To the best of my knowledge there has never been an adequate historical account of the US military research activities during the late 50s and 60s in NW Greenland. Although in hindsight some of these activities were totally WHACKY, we definitely learned a lot about the difficulties encountered when operating in such locations.
W. F. Weeks
Wiily Weeks
I am not sure you can conclude that "As far as this being an environmental threat, forget it !! " since the Guardian has reported that tunnels inside could accelerate melt.
Here is a link to the article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/11…
I worked at Century during the Spring of ~1967 studying the properties of polar snow of varying densities as exposed in the inclined drift (CRREL Research Report 276). The under-snow camp had been abandoned in 1966 as the result of creep closure problems so we lived on the surface. However the old camp was still accessable and Austin Kovacs took me on a tour of the old facilities. We were able to access the reactor site and look down into the melt well. Closure there was extreme presumably as the result of the thermal effect of the reactor. In 1969 Kovacs returned to Century and photographically documented the state of the under ice camp (see CRREL Special Report 150). Deformation was extreme. That may have been the last time anyone accessed the old camp. I would guess that access today would be impossible. I do not know exactly when the reactor was removed but it probably was prior to 1965. In 67 nothing remained. As far as this being an environmental threat
What the hell happened to the Nuclear reactor?
Taken back and scrapped. Even Wikipedia has the answer for that one.
Unless that's what the New World Order wants you think…
It was relocated to Fort Belvoir Va
Nothing secret about it. I recall reading a magazine article (National Geographic, IIRC) when I was young.
How come we could build and hide a nuclear reactor under the ice in Greenland, but can't build one today anywhere in the US to power our cities and our homes? WTF people, it's the 21st century!! Nuclear power is the answer to many of our problems!
while serving in the us army, 2nd photo platoon, i was assigned to shoot camp century on greenland's ice. was there four months, May to September of 1959. when we arrived at the site a temporary camp was set up and then using peter snow millers, digging the main trench and then the latteral trenches. when we left the ice cap, the atomic reacter trench was completed..only regret was i did not see it in its completion.
Wait, U sure that is under the ice and not on the Moon?
commander, prepare your forces for a ground assault!!!!!! Yes, lord vader.
Amazing.
This has been on the History channel for years and many do know about it.They had some really great clips of them building it.I hope that those who haven't seen this show do it was really good.
This is amazing, even today…2012
Wow! And, I was TDY to Thule Air Base in 1957 for Air Force survival training. Still have not lost the memory of the November cold and total outside darkness.
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My uSAF tenure in Thule was 62-63 and heard much about the base buried unde the Greenland ice cap. Isaw the tractor trains orange painted that visited Thule proper and picked up on supplies, parts, and other necessities to sustain life beneath the ice. There is also an article entitled "Our Secret Base Unde the Ice Cap" by author bruce Jacobs but unable to I.D. the magazine; the format and layout is of a U.S. large format magazine from yesteryear, i.e., Look, Colliers, Saturday Evening Post, etc. A fascinating engineering project. Another article entitled "Subways Under the Ice" is by James J. Haggert, Jr. appearing in Collier's May 11, 1956 Editon. It suggests even further expansion of the original plan s for under the ice aircraft and missile bases.
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Strategically, it almost makes sense to put a giant nuke storage facility there. I mean, who would think to look under all that ice? On the flip side, that's a lot of untouched nature that could potentially get contaminated if something went wrong. I just hope the facility has enough safety measure to prevent a nuclear disaster.
edit: Sears Tower (built 1970-1973)
8 years, that includes no progress from 2004-2006 since the deal could not be finalized between the authority and thus no actual construction of the main tower started until 2006.
And Burj Khalifa? yeah… impressive work they did there, which is also why it cost enough budget to suck more money than Dubai can actually afford, and why the cost per square meter on it is sky high (which kinda explains why it's vacancy rate is… rather alarming). I don't know about you, but i don't think the budget set for OneWTC can match the budget of state of Dubai.
Either way though, that's UAE, not china so that still leave me wondering what this highrise building in china that's supposedly even taller than OneWTC.
that basically calls BCIA information as false since the 43 million passenger throughput for example comes directly from their own statement for investors.
similarly with Heathrow's terminal 5 information.
I believe passingby was just thinking of new nicknames for himself out loud.
Airports are built to comfortably handle projected increases in passengers in the future, not to attract passengers, as your post seems to suggest. It's the capacity that counts. I don't where you got your stats but I've taken a lazy route through Wiki: BCIA passengers (2010) 73,948,114. London Heathrow (2010) 65,881,660.
So your information was false. But you're welcome to disprove Wiki's info.
A while back there was a WSJ report indicating that the BCIA will be at full capacity years sooner than originally projected, and China was planning a second international airport somewhere between Beijing and its nearby port city of Tianjin, where Airbus is assembling aircraft and parts.
quote: — "8 years, that includes no progress from 2004-2006 since the deal could not be finalized between the authority and thus no actual construction of the main tower started until 2006."
Thank You for proving my point (and arguing against yourself). Incompetent planning, execution, project management, logistics and operation control together with an incompetent government have been the cause for the delay. There is nothing complex about the new WTC tower itself.
Quote: — "what this highrise building in china that's supposedly even taller than OneWTC."
There are at least 7 just in major cities. For pictures and details of construction, go to http://www.skyscrapercity.com. You may also visit websites of SOM, KPF, OMA, Gensler, (too many to list).
China reportedly adds the equivalent of a city the size of Chicago every 3 months.
Personally more intrigued by the Pearl River Tower. But it's an ironically "green" building mostly run by a tobacco company…in China.
Don't forget: building it as 'real' commercial space vs. building it for soppy remembrance vs. building it as a tourist-magnet.
I like that design. It's also an example of a complex architecture that's technically difficult to built. Another good example is the CCTV Headquarters in Beijing, China.
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=17…
Neg, the same there… except they still take something from you regardless of how high you are in stature in china, the only difference is that there is only one powerful party to appease of rather than multiple, which kinda makes things easier as to who to be careful of.
Try making a major business deal for any purchase in china and count how many loop you have to go through, and each time you have to grease them as well to get it through in timely fashion.
Not that you don't have to grease a fair number of hands in many other countries too when trying to market your product in, but they fully expect it in china.
Socialisim means that the government or the state actually OWNS the means of production, rarely is that the case anywhere in America no matter what the industry.
Which is how they got their money ie: cheap or no cost land repurchase (one you cannot refuse) from current owner and reselling at higher price to the commercial investor.
Back to the information you mentioned, most of the ones i am seeing are 200-300m in height.
But the interesting ones are naturally the 400m ones where you got:
International Commerce Centre: 8 years 2002 – 2010
Shanghai World Financial Center: 11 years 1997 – 2008 (including 6 years of limbo period since you insist that the period covers it)
And the good ones in timely fashions are:
Kingkey 100: 4 years 2007 – 2011
Guangzhou IFC: 5 years 2005-2010
Incidentally in case if you are curious, i am counting their floor height and not spire or antenna height.
Oddly enough wiki page puts BCIA total capacity as 78 million per year and Heathrow as 90 million per year. Both of these after Terminal 3 for BCIA and Terminal 5 for Heathrow of course.
And as to where i got mine, you should be able to just check it from BCIA webpage (ditto with Heathrow), i am fairly certain they have similar information from the one i got on their webpage, well it had to be since it comes from them.
Your stats seem to be wrong again. Note that there is a difference between designed capacity and actual passenger traffic. Anyway, while there are differences in stats from different sources, both designed capacity and actual passenger traffic are higher at BCIA than at London Heathrow.
My previous post showed stats for 2010. Below are stats for 2011:
BCIA (2011): 77,403,668
Heathrow (2011): 69,433,565
The gap will only be getting wider and wider. That's a consensus.
Which is expected given the economy shift, what i don't understand is how the figure i quoted is a wrong data given that is exactly the data they are giving. I mean you are quoting the actual passenger that the airport handled right?
For that matter why is the actual passenger traffic going to invalidate the stat? Actual passenger traffic of BCIA at 77mil for example in 2011 with their designed capacity of 78mil maximum is precisely why they are already initiating the capacity improvement program again even after Terminal 3 from Phase III expansion is it not? Isn't that conforming exactly that they are nearing the capacity limit with what their design maximum capacity of 78 million passengers per year indicate when they did phase III expansion of BCIA?
So with Heathrow maximum capacity at 90million passengers per year and actual passenger traffic at 69mil last year, why is the 90mil figure wrong? They designed it to handle 90mil, but only 69mil passed through, does that somehow means it can't handle more than 69mil? I am confused why there is a problem with the figure here.
The roof of One WTC is about 417 meters. So just look for buildings with roof height at 418 meters or above. A couple of examples:
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=55…
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=39…
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=45…
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7186/6984799631_349…
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7219/7035065809_2ec…
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7059/7035062189_217…
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7187/6864368490_292…
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y162/cityz/Urban…
Great shots, except one problem half of them you mentioned are not finished yet either.
So how exactly do we use that as a measurement of their performance in the construction when it's not even finished?
And incidentally, you included the picture of Shanghai World financial center in there…
Yeah, THAT shanghai world financial center i mentioned in the previous post that took 11 years to construct with 6 years of limbo.
The next one after that is Jin Mao tower which had a roof of 370m, though still impressive construction none the less, took them 5 years for it.
look at the stats table for 2011:
http://www.airports.org/cda/aci_common/display/ma…
Which is just reiterating what you said before and as i said before as well how is that contradicting the information given about their maximum capacity?
The figure you see is the total passengers that essentially the airport handled right? so BCIA had 77 mil ppl in total handled in 2011 while their maximum projected handling capacity is at 78 mil including the 43 mil from Terminal 3.
Heathrow had 69 mil handled in 2011 in total, while the maximum handling capacity with terminal 5 included is 90 mil passengers.
I don't get it, how is that information contradicting their announced design capacity?
The Japanese firm responsible for financing got into trouble, if I remember correctly. Jin Mao was one of the earliest so-called "supertalls" there, before the onslaught of a building boom. It's only slightly shorter than One WTC. These are examples of buildings that are or will be taller than One WTC, in response to your question.
There are more completed buildings. You will find them if you spend some time on that site. It has a lot of great pictures from around the world. Don't just focus on China. Korea, Dubai, Malaysia, Indonesia etc all have some great buildings.
Which is all fine and good, but the main interest of course are the 400m buildings because that then gives a gauge of roughly how much time it takes them to build one.
And hell just as they can have problem with their cases, so do any other construction of similar scale.
Even more so when the building has a significance attached to it.
No one is exactly going to give too much fuss about the building being slammed by an aircraft a decade ago (even if they do somewhat design them to resist one to a degree). But they sure as hell do now, and they DAMN well be expecting the WTC replacement to be much more capable at saving it's occupant than it's predecessor at it (even if some of their expectation is unrealistic).
It doesn't mean their construction process, time and budget should be allowed to bleed out and especially affected by politic game, but as i am looking at all the list of the buildings, their construction time isn't exactly that different… 4 to 6 years so far, 2 years construction of taller building that your original statement suggested? I can't find one, and from the rate in which they construct these on the list, that doesn't seems likely even to achieve yet.
just remembered that the original SWFC design had been under fire from many local residents, who considered the round opening at the top a symbol of the Japanese flag. A public campaign to force a change in the design ensued and KPF, the architects for the project, changed the opening to a trapezoid in response. LOL!!
Anyway, most buildings in Asia (esp. Dubai, China, including Hong Kong & Macau, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia) get completed a lot sooner than comparable buildings in the US. That's been pretty consistent over the years. America simply can't match Asia in speed of construction. It's not just buildings. The same is true for tankers, ocean liners, trains, railways, highways, bridges, submarines, aircraft …
"command economy"
where every decision made and everything and everyone is "owned' by the government in one way or another
Sure, though of course no one checks exactly what they built aye? ie: does the tanker built by the US shipyard equals to the tanker built by the russian shipyard for example?
Considering EACH country you mentioned are likely to have differing requirements, differing local condition and operating condition, are THOSE taken into account before we generalize them all?
yeah… thought as much.
I could care less of US and their product, but if i am sane and attempt to compare their product and work with someone else's for example when i am attempting to hire someone to do the job then i sure as hell gonna want to know WHAT exactly does the end product or work gives.