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World's Tallest Building To Open Monday
dtmos writes "The Burj Dubai ('Dubai Tower' in Arabic) is scheduled to open to the public on Monday. Its height, claimed to be 824.55m (2,705.2 feet), but believed to be 818m (2,684 feet) — either way, more than half a mile — makes it far taller than Taiwan's Taipei 101, which had been the world's tallest skyscraper at 509m (1,670 feet)."
This is the tallest manmade structure in the world, freestanding or otherwise. The previous record was held by a TV mast in eastern North Dakota, which took the lead when a mast in Poland fell down if I am not much mistaken about the history. This building has occupied floors higher than the world's tallest TV mast. The only thing possibly taller would be offshore oil rigs, but I can't remember how those stack up against it. A very impressive accomplishment, so long as it stays standing through Monday.
You're right, it is a pissing contest, and there's really no point in it. The US does not need to build that high. For that matter, western Europe does not have a single building in the top 100 for height. This is a huge white elephant for the UAE, and white elephants are something the US already has plenty of.
Building a building that goes to 11 is not a technological challenge. Heck, Burj Dubai was designed by a US firm. There are a dozen firms in the US and around the world that could build a building a hundreds of feet taller than the Burj Dubai if there was a need. There isn't. Pursuing a giant national phallic symbol is not what the US should be spending its resources on.