At 12 stories high, Henderson Waves is Singapore's tallest pedestrian bridge. The bridge, which opened in 2008, is made of seven undulating curved steel ribs that alternately rise over and under its deck. The curved ribs form secluded spots that function as shelters with seats within.
Not afraid of heights? Check out the view from the Ledge at Willis Tower, formerly Sears Tower, in Chicago. The five-sided balconies, which opened in 2009, are suspended 1,353 feet in the air and jut out 4 feet from the building's 103rd floor Skydeck. They're actually more like boxes than balconies, with transparent walls, floor and ceiling. Visitors can see unobstructed views of Chicago from the building's west side, and a heart-stopping vista of the street and Chicago River below.
Palm Jumeirah is an artificial island, the first and smallest of the three Palm Islands created off the coast of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The palm-tree shaped island is so large that it can be seen from the International Space Station. It is currently home to luxury homes and the megaresort Atlantis, The Palm, and will eventually tout many other deluxe hotels. In the years since construction began in 2001, this island effectively has doubled the length of Dubais coastline.
The Hualapai tribe of Arizona commissioned this horseshoe-shaped, glass walkway that opened above the Grand Canyon in 2007. The Skywalk juts off the rim of a side canyon 4,000 feet above the Colorado River. Despite the vertigo-inducing views, the glass bridge reportedly is very sturdy it can support more than 71,000 pounds and can withstand gusts of wind over 100 mph.
Located in Chinas Hubei Province, this largest hydroelectric power station in the world contains a 375-mile-long reservoir within its impressive 7,661-foot concrete bulk. The scale of the controversial project is so huge that it has displaced millions of people, submerged hundreds of cultural sites in the Three Gorges area and precipitated an untold amount of damage on the regional environment. Construction began in 1994, but the dam is not expected to become fully operational until 2011.
One of the most difficult engineering endeavors ever attempted, the Panama Canal is a 50.72-mile-long passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans that was begun by France in 1880 but completed by the U.S. in 1914. It drastically reduced shipping distances between New York and San Francisco, from 14,000 miles around Cape Horn to 6,000 when passing through the canal. During the American construction phase, 211 million cubic yards of dirt and rock were scraped away over 10 years to finish the canal.
Also known as the Pearl Bridge, this structure spans the strait between the islands of Honshu and Awaji in Japan. Upon its opening in 1998, the Pearl Bridge became the longest suspension bridge in the world, with a center span measuring 6,532 feet in length making it a full quarter-mile longer than the previous record-holder. The entire three-span bridge is more than 12,000 feet long.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner took off on its long-awaited first flight on Dec. 15, 2009. The Dreamliner is the first commercial airplane thats mostly built from carbon-reinforced plastic. This composite material is light and strong and wont corrode or be susceptible to metal fatigue. Using this kind of construction also reduces both the financial and environmental costs of building a new plane. The first Dreamliner is expected to be delivered to All Nippon Airways in late 2010.
Visiting Las Vegas? Consider a side trip to Hoover Dam. It spans the Colorado River between Arizona and Nevada, about 30 miles southeast of Sin City. The massive dam, built between 1931 and 1936, is 726.4 feet deep, from foundation rock to the roadway on the crest of the dam. Hoover Dam generates, on average, about 4 billion kilowatt-hours of hydroelectric power each year for use in Nevada, Arizona and California enough to serve 1.3 million people.
Orbiting Earth with a resident crew since November 2000, the International Space Station is accessible only to enterprising tourists who have bank accounts flush enough to afford approximately $25 million for the round-trip ticket offered by Space Adventures. To date, six space tourists have boarded the ISS to experience days of zero gravity orbiting the planet. However, that number is sure to rise in coming decades as private companies develop commercial spacecraft and programs to make the final frontier a viable travel destination.
The Millau Viaduct in southern France, which opened in 2004, is the tallest vehicular bridge in the world, with a roadway nearly 900 feet in the air. The cable-stayed design gives the bridge the appearance of a row of sailboats at sea, and the masts rise 1,125 feet higher than the Eiffel Tower.
Dubai, United Arab Emirates, opened the worlds tallest skyscraper in January, 2010, and superlatives have poured in ever since. If you stuck the Eiffel Tower on top of the Empire State Building, you still wouldnt have a structure as tall as the Burj Khalifa. It rises 2,717 feet from the desert and provides views of the Persian Gulf, the sail-shaped Burj al-Arab hotel and the man-made Palm Jumeirah island. Originally named Burj Dubai, the building was renamed in honor of Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the ruler of Abu Dhabi, which pumped tens of billions of dollars into Dubai in 2009 as it struggled to pay enormous debts.
-- Edited by NoKTurnaL on Tuesday 29th of June 2010 10:55:20 PM
-- Edited by NoKTurnaL on Tuesday 29th of June 2010 10:55:20 PM