I have a dream. One day I would like to construct a giant statue of a man holding a croquet mallet in East St. Louis Illinois, across the Mississippi from St. Louis. My chances of ever doing this seemed to be somewhere between never-gonna-happen and definitely-never-gonna-happen. But in this new internet age people accomplish all sorts of things through crowd sourcing. I don’t know how much this would cost. The statue would have to be over 2500 feet tall to have the right proportions, and at that height it would be worth a few more feet to make it the tallest man-made structure on earth.
So if anyone understands this crowd sourcing process, or can make suggestions about the construction of such a huge statue I’d like to hear from you.
I guess everyone thought this was a joke. Well it could be a great joke if we can get the statue built!
Anyone have experience with Kickstarter? Do I need to know what this will cost up front? It’s going to be expensive, engineering the world’s largest structure can’t be inexpensive, and the actual construction costs will be much higher. Could I just try to raise $1 million for the planning stages?
How about suggestions for the statue design? Since this first occurred to me I imagined a non-descript man, but now I’m thinking a woman with a long dress will be a better structural design. Maybe something like this Gibson Girlwith a mallet instead of a golf club.
Structural engineering advice will be welcome also. How’s the ground in E. St. Louis, is this an alluvial plane or is there bedrock near the surface?
Winds aloft would make a soft-sided structure like that look like a certain tower in Pisa. In the event of a power failure, it would cover quite a large radius.
It’s not that bad an idea. Instead of a humongous fan it could be done with hot air. It’s still a bit risky having something that big, but another approach is to take advantage of the perspective from distance and the guy does haven’t to be that tall if you take a picture near the statue facing west.
I’m going to keep this in mind in case nothing else pans out. Thanks FairyChatMom, I appreciate your effort.
India’s Statue of Unity (currently under construction) has a budget that’s the equivalent of US$460 million. That statue will be 597 feet tall.
Your statue will be over four times that height. And also over four times the width and breadth. So let’s say it’ll be sixty-four times the size of the Statue of Unity.
Assuming you can scale up the cost directly, that gives you a budget goal of $29,440,000,000. Let’s round it off to an even thirty billion dollars.
Across the Mississippi from the arch (and that’s the only view uncluttered enough to be worth while) is the rest of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. So before you can kick the starter, you’d have to get permission to build your statue there. And I’m pretty sure you’re going to need a complete design before they’ll even think about permitting it.
On the other hand - on those memorial grounds there is a three story spiral viewing platform on a raised wedge of earth, pointed right at the arch. (Thank you Google Earth.) It has a wonderful view. It lifts viewers above the levee, above the railroad tracks, and probably even above the big electrical wires. I’m sure that if you studied the angles, you could build something light that could be temporarily strapped to or held against the railing while you take some good pictures, perhaps even a video.
With camera angles working for you, you could probably use a smaller figure (or figures - why stop at one). The first step is to get two people to go to the memorial viewing platform - one with a camera and one with a yardstick. They can photograph the yardstick from different angles. I hate to say it, but a phone and a long selfie-stick may be needed. After that we can talk about a design.
Do we have two Missouri dopers willing to angle for a dream?
Who knows, if the photos/video ends up looking good, you’ve got a demonstration of concept to take to the National Park Service or whoever else is running the memorial.
Hot air probably wouldn’t work for a couple of reasons. Your best bet in the inflatable is an LTA gas. You’d be limited to helium, which is quite expensive, as I don’t see the authorities allowing you to do one of the others, for safety reasons. Also, I don’t think the ‘airdancer’ shape that Moommm referenced would work. It would probably need to be more lollipop shaped & a spherical shape rather than the pancake shape at that, though I still think a metal version would be better for longevity purposes. Little Nemo, surely there’s some economies of scale; don’t think it’ll be a penny over $27B.
