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Chinese bridge builders use rockets to shoot 3,200-foot cables across a valley
A big head-scratcher when building a suspension bridge is how to get those suspension cables from one end of the divide to the other. In the past, helicopters and boats have been employed for this purpose — even kites — but Chinese engineers constructing the Siduhe Grand Bridge had another idea: rockets. They used precision rockets to send 3,200-foot-long cables over a valley, and enable the construction of a bridge that would be 2,132 feet above the ground — which could easily fit any skyscraper in America underneath with room to spare.
Click Continue to see a picture of the completed bridge, finished last July and reportedly the highest bridge in the world, when measured from the ground to its deck.
Via Deputy-dog
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By Stuart Dryburgh at 7:46 PM ON 11/20/08
Bet that method is just wonderful for the environment...
By RipDaJacker at 3:37 AM ON 11/21/08
Stuart, how many bridges are under construction now using that method? one? maybe two? i bet, it has a big "impact" over the environment...
By deputydog at 3:53 AM ON 11/21/08
hey, i'm afraid siduhe bridge isn't complete. the last picture you posted is of a bridge in guizhou province.
By Counter-Argument at 3:56 AM ON 11/21/08
Stuart,
Using motorised helicopters and boats isn't likely to impact the environment any less, possibly more!
By face at 11:21 AM ON 11/21/08
Does anyone else see a sad face in the rock, on the left side halfway down?
By nathan at 1:17 PM ON 11/21/08
Stuart,
Constantly using electricty to complain how people are impacting the environment is more of impact than anything you are complaining about. Just shut up already. You live on the earth, therefore you MUST impact it... seriously, just get over it!
By zintradi at 2:08 PM ON 11/21/08
Oh come on... a rocket shot that take a few seconds to get over to its destination buring about 10lbs or so of fuel comepared to a helicopter flying out to the site, idleing while the cable is hooked up, fly accross the ravine, idleing, and then flying back to where it came???
geez...
By freaked at 2:11 PM ON 11/21/08
repeating yourself over and over again impacts the environment even more! ;-)
By CoolProducts at 2:20 PM ON 11/21/08
I think it's great that the Chinese were able to think of a simple yet effective solution to deliver the cables. Props to them.
By Lumpi3 at 4:03 PM ON 11/21/08
That's pretty inventive. They could have jumped the gap Evel Knievel style to get the cables across.
By Asakari at 5:07 PM ON 11/21/08
Not very practical in urban areas, where people could get in the way of impact sites where the cables would land.
I thought they were already using this considering using arrows to build a bridge wasn't that different a method from using rockets because it's still the same concept, the only difference is that it uses a different projectile.
By Bankslay at 6:07 PM ON 11/21/08
Don't worry about the Chinese environment. After Bush-McCain and the Democrats signed over our governmental authority with the B.K. aka bailout aka rescue to the Chinese, EU and oil rich Arabs, Bush created a bunch of midnight regulation to contaminate our air and water with nuclear and heavy metal waste to render our country uninhabitable to the foreign invaders.
Now they have to clean up China and implement a Capitalist representative republic with low taxes and private schools, get rid of terrorists in the middle east and get rid of socialism and universal health care in Europe and use the U.S. for cheap slave labor and a toxic waste dump.
I can see the rocket and targeting technology the Clinton's sold them is working out quite well.
By Larry at 7:28 PM ON 11/21/08
The sad part is, this will now take away all the rocket cable sending jobs in America. :(
By Bender at 8:35 PM ON 11/21/08
Bite my shinny metal a__!
By Dude at 6:24 PM ON 11/22/08
To Bankslay: Did you have your tinfoil hat on when you typed that gibberish ?
By sam at 7:36 PM ON 11/22/08
Not sure why everyone is so amazed at the idea of starting the cables this way. Tribes in Papua New Guinea use bows and arrows to shoot leaders across a gorge to build a bridge, have been for thousands of years. I will bet the technique has been invented independently thousands of times anywhere people live in hilly country and need bridges. This is the Chinese being clever with fireworks, basically. But the same kinda thing.
Plus the steel cable doesn't go over this way, you start with a lightweight leader (Dacron or similar) which is used to pull the heavy cable across.
By Corrector at 11:53 PM ON 11/22/08
"By Stuart Dryburgh at 7:46 PM ON 11/20/08
Bet that method is just wonderful for the environment...
"
yeah... because the helicopters and boats all run on solar energy...
By pcmatt at 10:45 AM ON 11/23/08
Are those cables steel?
I don't see how those rockets would have enough power to pull a 3200' cable with it?
Just seems like they would be underpowered.
Is that a starter rope might and not the cable? I bet thats what it is..
By Tristan at 10:09 PM ON 11/26/08
@pcmatt Yeah, tis the pilot cable the fired over and not the main cabling
By real engineer at 3:33 PM ON 12/23/08
Boys and Girls.. the FIRST wire needs to be transfered via some means -- the rest are pulled back and forth from the wire just strung.
Study in school.. ok?
By Dwindle at 1:37 PM ON 12/25/08
Yeah, I'm sure those are just pilot ropes, not the actual cables which I'm sure weigh hundreds of pounds once unwound. My father used to use a slingshot to run dipole antennas for short wave radio.
By Gabriel - Gadfly Revolution at 4:10 PM ON 12/28/08
Given their historical propensity for gunpowder and rockets, I find it really amusing that the Chinese are the ones doing this.