The first spaceport began construction last Friday

Traveling in space is going to start in near future as the first ever spaceport began construction last Friday in New Mexico called Spaceport America. The design for Spaceport America's terminal hangar facility was created by a team of American and British architects that were selected after competing in an international design competition. URS Corporation, one of the world's largest design and engineering firms, teamed with lead designer Foster + Partners of the United Kingdom to submit the winning design. Foster + Partners has extensive experience designing airport buildings and other high profile projects worldwide, will host commercial operations by private space travel companies, like Virgin Galactic.

The 110,000-plus square foot-facility using cost-effective, energy-efficient green building practices. Spaceport America's terminal hangar facility will be built to the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED rating system. Extensive use of sustainable and clean energy technology throughout the design will ensure that the spaceport will set the standard for environmentally sound design for similar structures in the future. From earth-tubes that will pre-condition the air to reduce HVAC costs by 50-70% to solar thermal panels on the roof for hot water to the embedded in-floor loop system, Spaceport America is both unique and iconic in terms of visual and environmental design.

Spaceport America is the world's first purpose-built commercial spaceport, and the first spaceship that will fly from this space port is called "WhiteKnightTwo" which is Virgin Galactic's mother ship for the company's SpaceShipTwo, a vehicle that will transport passengers from Spaceport America to the edge of space. Spaceport America is expected to begin construction in July and is scheduled for completion in late 2010 or early 2011. [ Spaceport America ]

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Bird Island : Eco friendly home of future in Kuala Lumpur

Bird Island is a great project which is been developed in Sentul Park, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Designed by architects of Graft Lab who are one of the eight competitor of YTL Green Home Competition, The entire structure is made of silicone glass fibers. Due to its flexibility and lightness it will sway according to breeze, its tent structure will reflect sunlight which helps to reduce heat which helps in reducing need of AC, slate in the fabrics will allow residents to view the surrounding landscape, it also has grey water recycling system which channels water from showers and sinks back into the plumbing for reuse.

Via. Designboom

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Robots that can climb the poll

Now a days robots are helping in many areas like military, police, home,etc. and now they are going to help in difficult area like construction. Company at Virginia Tech Robotics and Mechanisms laboratory (ROMELA) have recently designed a robot that can climb the straight poll, it coils around the poll and roll upward using an oscillating joint motion, it also has sensors and camera for gathering data.

This robot is basically designed for helping construction area so human can work at safer side, it uses compressed air muscle for climbing it is also called CIRCA (Climbing Inspection Robot with Compressed Air), initially this robot is attached with laptop with cable for its work but in future design it will have microprocessor and power source for its independent operation.

Director of company ROMELA at Virginia Tech Mr. Dennis Hong said “The use of compressed air makes this approach feasible by enabling it to be light weight, providing compliant actuation force for generating the gripping force for traction, and allowing it to use a simple discrete control scheme to activate the muscles in a predetermined sequence.”

Via. ROMELA

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Dubai is going to have world's largest LED screen

World's largest LED screen is to be in Dubai which has curved surface and approx 300ft high which will visible from approx 1 mile. The company of United Arab Emirates named Tameer Holding is going to build this screen, it is basically for power full advertising, messaging and art. They are going to use highly reflective bluish tinted glass for achieving great visual impact.

The build which is going to be constructed for this massive screen will have 33 levels of commercial office space and four floors will be for parking and two ground level for will be for retail stores, each floor is approximately 10,000 square feet which has spacious lobby with feature of water cascade which will give the illusion of water passing through glass channels, this entire project is going to use 51,000 square feet of land space. Tameer is showcasing this project in Cityscape Dubai 2008.[gizmag]

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