Abandoned/Proposed Feasible Megaprojects

anw_rev

Here you can list megastructure projects which abandoned due to lack of willingness, technology, funding, etc, in OTL but have a chance of being built in other timelines. Or they can still be ideas in our world.

First in my mind are the Atlantropa, the "greening" of Sahara desert, and the redirection of Central Asian rivers for irigation.
Can you name more? I really need this.

Thanks in advance!
 

asnys

The Transisthmian Canal, a proposed sea-level replacement for the Panama Canal discussed in the 60s. It would have been wide enough to accommodate modern supertankers and other large vessels, and it would have been excavated at sea level to avoid the need for a complicated system of locks. And, at least in some proposals, it would have been excavated by a series of several hundred nuclear explosions, as part of Project Plowshare. My next TMMAM update (see sig) is going to be on the canal, once I track down a few more books.

Plowshare had a whole bunch of mega-engineering proposals. How about an instant harbor up in Alaska? Another Plowshare proposal was to use nukes to excavate a canal from the Mediterranean to the Qatarra Depression, to both irrigate the desert and generate hydroelectricity. Then there was the plan to manipulate hydrological cycles by using nukes to break up rock, so that rainwater would be absorbed into aquifers rather than evaporating. There were a whole bunch of ideas like this - they got very creative.

If you don't mind military examples, a lot of the Peacekeeper missile basing proposals fall under mega-engineering. The most famous is the Racetrack, which would have converted a chunk of desert the size of Rhodes Island into a vast system of bunkers, and missiles would be shuttled from bunker to bunker so that the commies would never know which one had the real missiles. I've heard on the net that it would have taken several years worth of the entire US concrete production capacity to build, but I can't confirm that.
 

elkarlo

Banned
Asnys said:
The Transisthmian Canal, a proposed sea-level replacement for the Panama Canal discussed in the 60s. It would have been wide enough to accommodate modern supertankers and other large vessels, and it would have been excavated at sea level to avoid the need for a complicated system of locks. And, at least in some proposals, it would have been excavated by a series of several hundred nuclear explosions, as part of Project Plowshare. My next TMMAM update (see sig) is going to be on the canal, once I track down a few more books.

Plowshare had a whole bunch of mega-engineering proposals. How about an instant harbor up in Alaska? Another Plowshare proposal was to use nukes to excavate a canal from the Mediterranean to the Qatarra Depression, to both irrigate the desert and generate hydroelectricity. Then there was the plan to manipulate hydrological cycles by using nukes to break up rock, so that rainwater would be absorbed into aquifers rather than evaporating. There were a whole bunch of ideas like this - they got very creative.

If you don't mind military examples, a lot of the Peacekeeper missile basing proposals fall under mega-engineering. The most famous is the Racetrack, which would have converted a chunk of desert the size of Rhodes Island into a vast system of bunkers, and missiles would be shuttled from bunker to bunker so that the commies would never know which one had the real missiles. I've heard on the net that it would have taken several years worth of the entire US concrete production capacity to build, but I can't confirm that.
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Hahaha I like that. But that is def a case of the 'guy with a hammer who thinks every problem is a nail'.
 

NothingNow

Banned
There's the Cross-Florida barge canal. The Basic idea has been floating about since the 16th century, but even with Florida's fairly flat geography, it's still a bitch, and something of a stupid idea in the age of rails. The final incarnation featured a canal, including docks and dams to support everything and protect the aquifer, running from Palatka on the St. John's River to St. Marks, which is just north of Crystal River, over about 100 miles, plus another few hundred mile trip up the St. John's.



A Sane alternate route would probably follow the Suwannee river to the Santa Fe, and then dig a section to the Saint John's.
 
The Kiat

The Kiat

If they used pure fusion warheads (that is, ones that don't use fissile material to trigger fusion), then the fallout should be low. Then you could nuke stuff with the abandon they had back in the 50s.


anw_rev said:
the redirection of Central Asian rivers for irigation.
Click to expand...

I thought that was the reason the Aral Sea isn't a sea anymore.
 

RandomChance

How about....

The Thames Estuary airport proposal for Maplin Sands. A large artificial island with a massive airport including motorways and a port in the middle of the mouth of the Thames.
 

asnys

elkarlo said:
Hahaha I like that. But that is def a case of the 'guy with a hammer who thinks every problem is a nail'.
Click to expand...

I have a list of 27 proposed applications of nuclear explosives other than killing people, including electricity generation, desalinating ocean water, and aircraft propulsion. Like I said, the AEC got really creative at times.

The Kiat said:
If they used pure fusion warheads (that is, ones that don't use fissile material to trigger fusion), then the fallout should be low. Then you could nuke stuff with the abandon they had back in the 50s.
Click to expand...

They did a lot of work to get the fission fraction lower, but there's a hard limit on how small it can get, and many of the excavation explosives were going to be too small to avoid having a significant fission fraction.

The Kiat said:
I thought that was the reason the Aral Sea isn't a sea anymore.
Click to expand...

The Soviets had their own version of Plowshare, and their own version of the Pan-Atomic Canal - excavating a waterway to refill the Aral Sea from, IIRC, Siberian rivers. It was dropped because, among other reasons, it was pointed out that this would essentially just be moving the problem rather than fixing it...
 

BlairWitch749

Banned
Hitler had plans to build massive bridges to scandanavia from northern germany and denmark

There is the often proposed massive new york: oyster bay to rye bridge which would be more than 9 miles long

the broadwater floating natural gas terminal would have been a mega project

there is also Gingrich's proposed Mars prize plan which would have inspired mega engineering
 

The Oncoming Storm

Would all the various proposals for Lunar or Martian bases and giant orbiting space stations count? They're certainly technically feasible but prohibitively expensive.
 

wietze

Asnys said:
They did a lot of work to get the fission fraction lower, but there's a hard limit on how small it can get, and many of the excavation explosives were going to be too small to avoid having a significant fission fraction.
Click to expand...

You are still thinking of the traditional nuke that at least has a fissile booster.
What I think the kiat is talking about is direct fusion warheads. Those contain only explosives and hydrogen isotopes.


My favorite megaproject: the wel known scifi space escalator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator
 
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The Wookiee

The Gibraltar Bridge has been a favorite of mine for a while. Ironically, I first read about it in "The Fountains of Paradise" by Arthur C. Clarke, in which it was the second largest project undertaken by Man.
 

tallthinkev

Donor
Maybe not mega, but still large at the time, the BAC TRS-2. It would still have made a good aircraft well into the 80's.
 

baldipaul

The Thames Estuary airport proposal for Maplin Sands. A large artificial island with a massive airport including motorways and a port in the middle of the mouth of the Thames.
Click to expand...

Ahh, Boris Island, feasability study announced this week.
 

Michael B

baldipaul said:
Ahh, Boris Island, feasability study announced this week.
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It looks like one of those mega projects that actually makes sense. No bets though that it will be finished on time or budget.

It will worth noting that some mega projects like the Panama Canal crashed the first time some one tried them.
 
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