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There are lots of physics things that I'd like money to be spent on: space elvators, blimps, levies (nah no one is interested in keeping the waves out), http://www.monolithicdome.com/ , sustainable housing, and "alt" energy.

I wish that they'd work on something that didn't involve building huge colliders! I'm sorry, but I've had enough of reading about every larger colliders needed to prove the existance of some subatomic particle. Let me know if you figure out anything useful to do with those particles in the present. I'm not interested in particles our events that may have happened in a few milliseconds after the big bang. There are lots of physics things that I'd like money to be spent on: space elvators, blimps, levies (nah no one is interested in keeping the waves out), http://www.monolithicdome.com/ , sustainable housing, and "alt" energy. I guess that I'm not happy with this research because they just keep wanting bigger colliders to prove/disprove the existance of particles. Um, I might care if we could build or use those particles, but if the only way that we could even notice one is building these things what's the point?

Ahh, yes I forgot this is blue sky physics research.

I know those Monolithic Domes. Drive past them a lot, and have thought about them for a home. The institute is on I35E, at Italy, Texas, about 50 miles south of Dallas. There is also a monolithic dome school building in Pattonsburg, MO, on I35, 80 miles north of Kansas City. I visited that school building and learned it wasn't without problems. It leaks because the contractor did a poor job running pipes and exhausts and vents through the dome. It really echoes inside, which is great for putting on a play, but terrible for crowds screaming during a basketball game. They hung a lot of cloth from the ceiling to dampen that. I have thought a superior design might be a double dome-- the bottom dome would rise a bit higher than height as the tops of the walls of a regular building, and have a large circular hole on top which is capped by a 2nd dome that is slightly larger than that hole. Where the 2 domes meet would face downwards, and would be the place where vents, chimneys, exhausts and so on go from inside to outside. No leaks that way.

You don't need to *stop* the hurricane... just weaken it so it isn't catastrophic... Do this, while at the same time, creating better building standards for hurricane prone areas would save countless lives and billions of dollars.

http://www.monolithicdome.com/
http://www.icfweb.com/

There are ways to do this..

Dropping bio-degreadeable desiccant out of a plane similar to the ones we already spend money sending into storms would dry the storm out, reducing the severity of the storm, perhaps knocking a Cat 5 down to a low 4 or 3... Areas that need rain would still get rain but the destructive forces would be less severe.

We know that this can work.

Look at the Saharan dust storms that have kicked dust over the Atlantic, stopping several tropical waves from developing. This isn't hard. We just need someone to allot the funds to have it done in future Cat 3 or greater storms.

Stopping or steering hurricanes as many have pointed out here, simply is not an answer. But reducing the severity of a hurricane so that people don't die by the thousands, seems reasonable to me.

Actually, there are some people already doing more forward looking home building.

http://www.monolithicdome.com/

We are seriously thinking about building our house using this product in a few years. Its going to either one of these domes or using insultated concrete forms (ICF).

Two word topic says it all. Monolithic Domes are both energy efficient and disaster resistant. They aren't that expensive, when you consider energy savings and quality of materials being used in construction.

Includes lots and lots of pretty pictures. Check out the galleries of Homes, for example, among others.

Of course, domes are exceptionally well suited for construction underground (link has lots of usefule tips)

If you can get your hands on some rebar and strong concrete: http://www.monolithicdome.com/

I'm betting that if you could find a way to spray and cure the concrete in the extreme cold you could use something like these...

From what I understand they have a more than strong enough structure and could easily insulate well enough. Just my $.02 worth.

These things can survive just about anything short of a direct hit with a nuke.

I've been interested in building one of these for a while. It's a dome made of a concrete-foam sandwich that's sprayed one layer at a time onto an inflated form.

http://www.monolithicdome.com/thedome/index.html

The houses are extremely strong and durable and stand up to earthquakes, wildfires, and hurricanes quite well.

Unfortunately, most dome homes I've seen are quite ugly, but there are a few that look good to my eyes.

I've been interested in building one of these for a while. It's a dome made of a concrete-foam sandwich that's sprayed one layer at a time onto an inflated form.

http://www.monolithicdome.com/thedome/index.html

The houses are extremely strong and durable and stand up to earthquakes, wildfires, and hurricanes quite well.

Unfortunately, most dome homes I've seen are quite ugly, but there are a few that look good to my eyes.

I've been interested in building one of these for a while. It's a dome made of a concrete-foam sandwich that's sprayed one layer at a time onto an inflated form.

http://www.monolithicdome.com/thedome/index.html

The houses are extremely strong and durable and stand up to earthquakes, wildfires, and hurricanes quite well.

Unfortunately, most dome homes I've seen are quite ugly, but there are a few that look good to my eyes.

Take a look at the Monolithic Dome Institute's website. It's a very interesting concept.

They last forever!

Wow, my neighbor's house is the second news entry (Monolithic Dome Survives Engulfing Flames of California Wildfire) on the main page. How nice...

here!

Build a monolithic dome and cover it with sod. Should work just as well. Monolithic domes are cool.

Take a look at Xanadu and Monolithic Domes. You can build houses from bales of hay, chunks of sod, or into hillsides.

Most new housing concepts don't take off. One that unfortunately has is the trend of making houses out of cheap, pressed lumber and using shoddy fixtures. I don't like feeling like I can't lean on a wall or slam a door in many modern homes. Even homes costing USD$300K+ are built with flimsy parts now. I can't imagine how much worse it would feel living in an overgrown cubicle.

Check out the monolithic dome institute's website. Some very interesting concepts for building your own house. I don't work for the company, but I am interested in one day building one of these for myself, when I can afford it.

And unlike this case mod, they're very pretty and functional. And you can build one yourself.

www.monolithicdome.com

I definitely feel the same way. In the US, if a building is older than 100 it's considered ancient.

I took a few courses in Roman Archaeology in college, I was completely facinated. Granted a lot of the ruins in Rome were reconstructed and built back up. But take something like the current Pantheon, it was built in 126AD (or there abouts) and still stand to this day. It was the largest Dome until the Florence Cathedral in 1420.

A quick search reveals this page on the Pantheon
http://www.monolithicdome.com/articles/pantheon/

The is just one of the many thing us newbie American don't get to enjoy. :(

Now, in addition to pricey and inefficient solar panels, we're seeing electric cars actually advertised on TV. GE is marketing a hydrogen fuel cell that can power your house, including heat. (Yes, they've got it set up to run on hydrogen from propane, but you can modify it to accept hydrogen cracked from water using windmills or whatever.) Not enough power for you? You're wasting to much by living in "traditional" construction -- luckily, Monolithic Domes fulfill the promise that Geodesic Domes failed.

"But Bullwinkle, that trick never works!" It certainly hasn't up till now. But necessity is about to make these options a lot more popular.

"It's about time the people who run this planet of yours realized that to be dependent on a mineral slime just doesn't make sense. -- Dr. Who

...what about Dome homes?

The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk