COMMENT OF THE DAY: WRITE-IN ADDITION TO THE NEW KITCHEN-SINK ASTRODOME REDEVELOPMENT PLAN “How about turning the Astrodome into the Smithsonian Museum of Energy and Power? Just like the National Air & Space Museum, it could collect the actual artifacts of the industry that calls Houston home and that plays such an important part in all of our daily lives. You could put a whole supertanker, a few notorious drilling rigs, some significant parts of an oil refinery, working solar panels and several generations of windmill turbines inside. Divide up the concourse spaces for offices (alternative energy business incubators, etc) Could be really interesting and also an appropriate use for the facility.” [SCL, commenting on Latest Astrodome Redevelopment Proposal Features Large Domed Space for People To Mill About, Wondering What To Do with Astrodome]
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Wow. Maybe BP can underwrite it. BP needs some good public relations at this point. As does the entire oil and gas industry.
Maybe BP could have have a slide presentation on how BP solved the problem of deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico by turning it into a giant oil tank.
Maybe they can install some aquariums displaying marine life that once existed in the Gulf of Mexico.
Maybe you should keep your ideas to yourself?
Great idea! Kind of like the OTC used to be. Only without the “C” part. The Weiss Energy Hall at the Museum of Natural Science could be moved over there too – it’s always seemed a little squeezed where it is. Little rooms trying to depict a giant industry.
I was kind of rooting for a “recreation station” – a huge indoor pool, skateboard & roller skating park, ringed by a go-kart track (electric carts of course)… but maybe we can do both? An Energy Dome where people can explore all kinds of ways to get from here to there? Oh, and I want a large “engineering problem solving” lab (kind of like the new one at the Children’s Museum”, or San Francisco’s Exploratorium) where kids and adults can come to appreciate and get interested in an active problem-solving process.
Matt, go turn off your AC/Computer/refrigerator/lights/TV. Oh, and put anything made with plastic out by the curb, along with your car keys. Then feel free to carp. Do you think BP WANTED to trash this fantastically producing well? I blame the bean counters everywhere who overrule conservative engineering decisions.
You’re right, though, it would be a good PR move for the energy industry to underwrite SCL’s idea.
Do you think BP WANTED to trash this fantastically producing well?
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Of course not which is why BP also didn’t want to shut the well down when it could have and the result is we are watching the Gulf of Mexico being destroyed.
Time for some “alternate energy sources” which we would probably already have except they don’t offer obscene profits to the oil and gas industry.
And the bean counters weren’t on the rig but several executives were. They obviously made the decision not to shut the well down.
Blowout preventers, aka BOPs, work just fine. When you push the button.
@Matt Mystery
I bet you’re loads of fun at dinner parties.
I bet you’re loads of fun at dinner parties.
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I am.
This is the best idea I have heard so far.
Gulf of Mexico being destroyed
Matt, go look at the Gulf today. It’s still there. It will be there the next day too.
This has probably been mentioned, but here is the place to park the space shuttle we damn sure better be getting. That way it would be displayed in a controlled environment. Next to it, build a near-exact smaller-scale version (minus some of the super-expensive components). This would be used by students at various academic levels to “de-construct” and re-assemble a space shuttle “mock-up”, while being able to step outside and view/analyze the real thing (without beating it up).
I believe it would offer a great applied math/science experience for our brighter students (engineering, physics, etc.) as well as a destination for curious dumbass tourists like myself.
We desperately need to retain and develop “NASA-type” brains in the US, and in particular, Space City.
There was a reason it was named the ASTRO-dome.
If there’s room, no reason not to add an petro-chem “wing” as well. Some of the mentioned apparatus is pretty awe-inspiring sitting on dry land.
Matt, go look at the Gulf today. It’s still there. It will be there the next day too.
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I didn’t say it wasn’t there. Or that it won’t be there. What I said is that it is becoming the La Brea Oil Pit. According to the latest information not being provided by BP the well itself was compromised along with the bedrock long before the blowout. You can possibly seal the well. But not the bedrock. And there’s about $1.9 BILLION gallons of oil on its way into the Gulf of Mexico. Less whatever BP can manage to actually divert.
I bet you voted for Bush and Cheney….
Personally I think this idea is boring. I just don’t see a museum being compelling enough to support the large M&O costs of a structure the size of the Astrodome. But it’s no more uninteresting than the quasi-official proposals put before the commissioner’s court..and I certainly don’t have a better idea (haven’t given it thought either though).