# "Modern" mega-projects that future generations will see and admire **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 15, 2020, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-mega-projects-that-future-generations-will-see-and-admire/915420 "2020-07-15T16:36:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2020, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-mega-projects-that-future-generations-will-see-and-admire/915420/21 "2020-07-20T19:42:17Z")
> [@barkodogo](#): > > Skyscrapers probably wouldn’t make it to 100 years without ongoing maintenance. Obviously they need maintenance to remain habitable. But do skyscrapers require maintenance to remain standing, within the expected lifetime of their structural materials? What kind of maintenance? What would tend to fail first (absent earthquakes)? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2020, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-mega-projects-that-future-generations-will-see-and-admire/915420/22 "2020-07-20T19:53:29Z")
With no maintenance at all I’d guess (based on the series Life Without People, anyway) that they wouldn’t last more than 100 years, if that. You can look at buildings in Pripyat to see the progression, but basically the windows break, water gets in, the concrete goes through expansion and compression with the seasons and as the water gets into it it cracks and also the reinforcing steel rots and expands, the eventually you have a collapse. If you are doing maintenance, then you are fixing windows, painting, sealing and repairing the concrete to ensure it’s protected and stays strong, etc. Even in those conditions I’m unsure how long a modern sky scraper could last wrt to the OP…I doubt for 2000 years, though I guess if you took extraordinary care it could happen, especially if they develop things like self repairing concrete or some sort of nano-bot technology that could penetrate the concrete to repair or reinforce the substructure. Even without that you probably could keep, oh, say the Empire State Building up for that time if you really, really wanted too, though the cost would be huge I imagine and you’d almost certainly need to do a full renovation every century or so. You’d end up in a few thousand years with the equivalent of Thucydides ship (or, I guess, Thucydides Empire State Building), sort of along the lines of Newgrange, in that the original structure has been changed to suit modern tourists to give the impression of what once was. I think that if our civilization continues relatively unbroken for 2000 years you would see a few, select buildings or structures that get this treatment, renovated every century or so, and geared towards tourists would would come to admire this thing from a past age. It would be interesting for us, from this time to see them…I’d guess we might not even recognize the buildings anymore, except in the most general structure, and probably laugh at what the tour guides would say about them. 🤣 ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2020, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-mega-projects-that-future-generations-will-see-and-admire/915420/23 "2020-07-20T19:59:16Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > And someone saying “do you know there is still a tunnel underneath the English Channel that they built back in the 20th century?” I’d think pretty much everything that falls into the category “Giant holes in the ground” will survive. How impressive they will be will depend on how fancy the hole is. I toured the initial tunnels for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository just before its funding got cut, and I’m pretty sure it will still be there in a thousand years, but it’s not really visually impressive. > **[Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository | Facility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository#Facility)** > > The purpose of the Yucca Mountain project is to comply with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 and develop a national site for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste storage. The management and operating contractor as of April 1, 2009 for the project is USA Repository Services (USA-RS), a wholly owned subsidiary of URS Corporation (now part of AECOM) with supporting principal subcontractors Shaw Corporation (now part of McDermott International Inc.) and Areva Federal Services LLC (... The Cheyenne Mountain Complex will probably be more popular > **[Cheyenne Mountain Complex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheyenne_Mountain_Complex)** > > The Cheyenne Mountain Complex is a United States Space Force installation and defensive bunker located in unincorporated El Paso County, Colorado, next to the city of Colorado Springs, at the Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station,\[a\] which hosts the activities of several tenant units. Also located in Colorado Springs is Peterson Space Force Base, where the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) headquarters are located. > Formerly the cen... [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-mega-projects-that-future-generations-will-see-and-admire/915420.md?page=1)