COMMENT OF THE DAY: THEY LAUGHED AT THE IDEA OF PUTTING A DOME ON TOP OF A SPORTS STADIUM, TOO 
“. . . It is possible. The air space, the cooling system, flooding, venting, and anything else you could possibly think of. You people don’t think they have already thought of every possible scenario? These are very smart people, smarter than me and everyone else on this opionated blog. Like one of the guys on here said about us not ever imagining [an] indoor sports arena possible, and now we have many. And let’s just say it did happen. Did any of you ever stop to think about the extreme economic growth it would create for our city? A major city turned into probably the worlds number one tourist attraction. Resturants, shops, malls, and probably every business would boom. Not including the thousands that would pop up becasue of it. Creating thousands of jobs. . . .” [fhp, commenting on We’re All Astrodome Now: The Mile-Wide Dome Over Houston] Image: Engineering, Discovery Channel
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No I don’t think they’ve thought of every possible scenario, I think they’ve thought of how to make an entertaining TV show. I’m sure that at some point in the future the technology will exist to achieve this kind of engineering feat. I’m equally sure it cannot be done using current technology.
They don’t provide any numbers – no estimates of maintenance costs, lifetime of structural parts or the panel, no estimates of the cooling loads if it’s air-conditioned, no mention of how to fit it around or over elevated freeways.
It’s interesting to imagine, but this is not even in the “generate project alternatives” phase.
Are you really suggesting that they have some detailed design and they’ve already engineered factors of safety into every structural member, x% redundancy of cooling/heating, etc. or a constructability plan to see if any contractor can even build it in the first place?
Cover everything inside 610. THEN you’re talking.
This technology is already in use at the secret moon base.
Does it involve green cheese?
This is stoopid!
Given the air quality in Houston at some point they are going to have to build domes over the entire city. So they might as well start somewhere.
There are some gasses you wouldn’t want to trap in here. In a week it would be a brown bubble full of smog.
Didn’t you watch the Simpson movie… that bubble didnt help their economy!;)
A domed city is a good idea if we’re gonna throw all our money at it instead of stopping global warming. Hell, they better make sure that dome is water-proof for when the sea level rises enough to make Houston not only the first domed city, but the first underwater domed city. It’s 2010, where are our flying cars and floating cities? I suppose we’re more likely to see extreme-elevation cities(a la The Jetsons) before we’ll see domes.
This is a great idea. All the people inside inside the loop will get the indicator light installed in their palm, and when it goes red, they can hire coyotes to take them to Sanctuary, which is really just Katy Mills Mall overgrown with rot and feral hogs, and inhabited by formerly angry libertarians who fled the Heights.
We should start by putting roofs over the freeways. That would facilitate piping the air out to the suburbs, and we could have radiating parklands with unobstructed bike paths on top.