Glass Bridge will be suspended 4,000 feet above the Colorado River on the very edge of the Grand Canyon. On May 2005, the final test was conducted and the structure passed engineering requirements by 400 percent, enabling it to withstand the weight of 71 fully loaded Boeing 747 airplanes (more that 71 million pounds). The bridge will be able to sustain winds in excess of 100 miles per hour from 8 different directions, as well as an 8.0 magnitude earthquake within 50 miles.
More than one million pounds of steel will go into the construction of the Grand Canyon SkyWalk.
August 26, 2005—Fear of heights? This is definitely no place for you.
The all-glass, balcony-like "Skywalk"--shown in an illustration released this week--will extend over the edge of the Grand Canyon, 4,000 feet (1,200 meters) above the Colorado River.
"The Skywalk will be an attraction unlike any other in the world," said Sheri Yellowhawk, CEO of the Grand Canyon Resort Corporation. The company is building the bridge in the Hualapai Indian Reservation on the south rim of the canyon.
The Skywalk is scheduled to open to the public in January 2006 as part of a new resort on the reservation. The resort, known as Grand Canyon West, is to include a re-created Indian village and a restaurant perched on the edge of the canyon. Tourism is the reservation's biggest source of income.
Grand Canyon West will be on the western edge of Grand Canyon National Park, about 120 miles (about 200 kilometers) from Las Vegas. But perhaps not even the Las Vegas Strip's over-the-top attractions will be a match for this glass-bottom walkway over the world's biggest gorge.
—David Braun
Illustration courtesy Destination Grand Canyon
perghhhhh best....
ReplyDelete