Kazakhstan to pitch a big tent
Sunday, December 10, 2006
(SNN Semipalatinsk) Kazakhstan is planning to build a flexible tent that will entirely encompass an indoor city within its capitol city of Astana. The tent would be 150m high and larger than 10 football stadiums.
The capitol of Kazakhstan was moved to Astana 10 years ago. Temperatures in the winter plunge below -30 degrees Centigrade or -239 degrees Fahrenheit. The materials of the tent will be designed to absorb sunlight and heat the indoor city to summer temperatures.
Upon completion, residents of Kazakhstan will be able to play outdoor tennis, go to the beach and enjoy outdoor sex in the dead of winter.
But the project does create some risk. There is a danger that in the summertime, the fabric will focus the rays of the sun into a high intensity laser that will fire randomly across central Kazakhstan and into parts of Russia. This laser will have the power to take down airliners, destroy small buildings and vaporize any animal smaller than a cow.
