Why build skyscrapers from the ground up when you can hang them off asteroids and fly them around the Earth?
That’s the logic behind a bonkers new concept for a floating building suspended from vast rocks within our orbit.
Sadly, the design has a few shortcomings. Firstly, people who want to leave the building would have to parachute down to Earth.
And secondly, it would require a hugely ambitious mission to capture the asteroid and place it in Earth’s orbit.
If such a trick could be pulled off, the asteroid’s orbit would let it travel between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres each day, Science Alert reports.
“The ground trace for this pendulum tower would be a figure eight, where the tower would move at its slowest speed at the top and bottom of the figure eight, allowing the possibility for the towers occupants to interface with the planet’s surface at these points,” Clouds Architecture Office says.
“The proposed orbit is calibrated so the slowest part of the towers trajectory occurs over New York City.”
While the asteroid itself would orbit Earth at a height of more than 31,000 miles, the building would hang at about 20 miles up.
At that height, temperatures plummet to -40c and the air is a near-vacuum, forcing anyone leaving or entering to require a special suit.
Realistically, this building will never be built, but where’s the harm in dreaming, hey?