I compeletly misunderstood the description of Island One construction
on Dyffed Neal Dwyars [i]High Frontier[/i] page. That is what I was
going by.

The Island One colony walls werent 3m thick they were 15 m thick! And
the windows total 12 m of glass. Now that sounds a whole lot better.

Here is a quote from the e-mail he sent me on this.

[quote]Regarding the windows, it's important to remember that they're
not as
thin and "open" as they appear. Each prism is three meters (ten feet)
thick and there are four layers of prisms, so the "sky" panels are
twelve meters (forty feet) thick. For any part of the "sky" to blow
out, all four layers would have to fail.

The prisms are mounted in a five-by-five titanium grid to form a
square
"frame" fifteen meters (fifty feet) on a side and three meters deep,
with twenty-five prisms per frame. Even if the titanium cross-beams
are
only a centimeter (half inch) wide, that's still a very solid
infrastructure. The system can be made even stronger by making the
prisms trapezoidal and dovetailing them, so that any outward pressure
locks them even more tightly together.

Consider also that the actual force vector isn't perpendicular to the
axis of rotation, but tangential to the circumference. This creates
an
outward force that makes the inner hull seem like "down" to the
occupants, but the upspin force is demonstrably greater than the
outward
force, hence the upspin veer. The mass of water isn't pushing
directly
outward, but at an angle, hence the higher water level on the upspin
side.

Finally, while all of the illustrations show square window panels in a
classic Cartesian grid, that's probably because such a grid is easier
to
draw and more familiar to the layman. If I were designing these
things,
I'd use a geodesic array or triangular prisms for the windows and,
indeed, the titanium reinforcement for the concrete hull.[/quote]

--- In spacesettlers@y..., "tomexe" wrote:
> I compeletly misunderstood the description of Island One
construction
> on Dyffed Neal Dwyars [i]High Frontier[/i] page. That is what I was
> going by.
>
> The Island One colony walls werent 3m thick they were 15 m thick!
And
> the windows total 12 m of glass. Now that sounds a whole lot better.
>
> Here is a quote from the e-mail he sent me on this.
>
> [quote]Regarding the windows, it's important to remember that
they're
> not as
> thin and "open" as they appear. Each prism is three meters (ten
feet)
> thick and there are four layers of prisms, so the "sky" panels are
> twelve meters (forty feet) thick. For any part of the "sky" to blow
> out, all four layers would have to fail.
>
> The prisms are mounted in a five-by-five titanium grid to form a
> square
> "frame" fifteen meters (fifty feet) on a side and three meters deep,
> with twenty-five prisms per frame. Even if the titanium cross-
beams
> are
> only a centimeter (half inch) wide, that's still a very solid
> infrastructure. The system can be made even stronger by making the
> prisms trapezoidal and dovetailing them, so that any outward
pressure
> locks them even more tightly together.
>
> Consider also that the actual force vector isn't perpendicular to
the
> axis of rotation, but tangential to the circumference. This
creates
> an
> outward force that makes the inner hull seem like "down" to the
> occupants, but the upspin force is demonstrably greater than the
> outward
> force, hence the upspin veer. The mass of water isn't pushing
> directly
> outward, but at an angle, hence the higher water level on the upspin
> side.
>
> Finally, while all of the illustrations show square window panels
in a
> classic Cartesian grid, that's probably because such a grid is
easier
> to
> draw and more familiar to the layman. If I were designing these
> things,
> I'd use a geodesic array or triangular prisms for the windows and,
> indeed, the titanium reinforcement for the concrete hull.[/quote]

Whoops made a posting error, sorry

Anyway, assuming that on the colony exterior the windows are flush
with the solid segments, you would have 40 feet of solidly wedged and
framed glass. The solid segments are made up of some 50 feet of
titainum reinforced mooncreet. Atop the land panels is 15 to 75feet
of landscaped soil, regolith mostly with compost material mixed in
the top meter or so. Over the glass panels is a average of 10 feet of
water. That is a lot of material for radiation to get through. Even
on the 'thinner' transparent panels, any radiation that got through
would then have to pass through 4 miles of atmosphere to get to any
humans.

In reality the neither the transparent or solid panels would be
exactly 40 or exactly 50 feet deep- that is just how much material
that anything would have to pass through. Their would have to be
service tunnels- or whole service decks- within the walls. The
windows would probably be better as two 20ft (two prisim deep) layers
with a 10ft passage inbetween that would be left unpressurised. A
very small quantity of trace gasses, mostly ozone and some of the
Noble Gasses would be in there to moderate radiation and also to
provide leak detection. The vacume flask effect would allow better
temperature control in the colony. The solid sections would probably
have multiple decks of void, divided into tunnels and rooms but
support walls. It could even be a honeycomb construction, which would
be easier to build and almost as strong as solid.

What about adding water to be a filter between windows?

Carl

--- In spacesettlers@y..., Ravenart@a... wrote:
> What about adding water to be a filter between windows?
>
> Carl

Certainly possible.

However the point of putting water on the mirrors- besides the fact
it saves surface area on the solid parts- is to have it in contact
with the atmosphere inside the colony. It would better encourage a
more natural weather pattern and moderate temperature.

The sunlight passing through it during the day would encourage
evaporation, the hot air formed along the axis by the convergance of
the three mirrors would pick up this water as it expanded outward and
started spiraling around the inside of the hull. This would encourage
cloud formation and rain.

There is a whole lot you can with water in a colony. You can use the
coriolis effect to create a natural downspin current. You can use the
natural pressure created to build landscaped streams and rivers
through the land panels. Thus the water never stagnates. You can use
the natural temperature gradient from the sunward end to the shaded
end to create another current...

I would try to send the colonies reclamed water through the farming
satellites, and then through the coolent systems for the sunward
factory block then back into the colony.