Engineers in Houston, Texas have proposed to cover the entire city in a dome. Houston, the fourth largest city in the United States, has suffered hurricanes, extreme heat and humidity, and other natural disasters. Some say building a dome over the entire city will help solve its environmental problems and protect the city for the future. Last year, the city suffered US$10 billion of damage following the devastating hurricane Ike. According to Fox News, temperatures rise into the 90's about 100 days per year, and with fears of further global warming, city planners are eagerly searching for a solution.
The proposed dome structure would literally move the city indoors; it would stretch over Houston's downtown skyscrapers and cover over 21 million square feet. Engineers of the structure propose using ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE), a material that weighs only a fraction as much as glass and can withstand 180 mile per hour winds. To construct the Houston dome, heavy-lifting helicopters and helium-filled air ships would be used to construct the pieces on top of the 1,500 foot tall building.
