As you may have noticed the above picture is not of a normal space structure. It is actually a composite of a picture of the earth taken from the Space Shuttle and an unusual picture of the Shell Norway Troll gas platform.

This composite was created for my presentation at the 38th Space Congress where I presented Innovative Financing of a Large Space Project. I wanted an opening slide that would catch the attention of an audience made up of rocket scientists, engineers and Ph.D.s. Since these people worked in the space industry a standard photo of the ISS would have been dismissed as normal and I wanted something that was as unusual as my paper. I needed a picture that broke the normal mode and made the audience think and speculate about the possibilities.

Andy Clark suggested Norway's Troll gas platform because it is the world's tallest concrete platform measuring 472 meters from top to bottom. My point was that there is no reason we can't build something of that size in space, the Troll also shows that Venture Capital is available for large projects.

Pictures of the Troll can be found at http://www.shell.no/no-no/content/0,4276,40067-59854,00.html