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World’s largest building has opened in China.

World’s largest building has opened in China.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

3 comments

  • Interesting photos. My first thoughts are:

    1. How much did it cost to build?
    2. How much will it cost to maintain?

  • Pzatchok

    I’m not that impressed.

    If it goes the way of other great Chinese builds recently it will end up half empty and a major disappointment to the visitors.

    Could you imagine trying to walk from the hamburger joint on one side to the squid shop all the way on the other side?

    Or you work in the huge telecommunications company who rents the top floor on one side and half your employes end up taking two hour lunches down in the fun areas.

  • Direct build cost is hard to come by, but we can develop an estimate. Using information from this document (http://rlb.com/rlb.com/pdf/research/RLB_China_Report_September_2012.pdf), the cost of associated construction costs (land, infrastructure, direct construction costs, etc.) came to about $3200/m^2 in Shanghai in 2009. Construction started in 2010, and the rate of inflation in China has averaged about 2.6% since 2009, so we can use a figure of merit of $3280/m^2. Multiplying by the buildings area of 1.7 million m^2 gives an estimated cost of around $5.6 billion. This doesn’t seem unreasonable.

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