Rotating space colonies (The Wish is the Father of the Thought)

Joe: "No kidding. Is this the same nut that thinks (without doing any
actual research on the topic) that engineers have neglected basic
physics in designing lunar colonies? Or is it a different nut?"

Xenophile: "Nope. The exact same macadamia. But his problem isn't
nuttiness, it's arrogance.

Right, it's me, the same nut. Thanks Xenophile for calling
me "arrogant" instead". In the dictionary, arrogant says to
mean "aggressively assertive or presumptious" In the same dictionary,
presumptious means "unduly or overbearingly confident"

You guys are actually "unduly or overbearingly confident" that huge
rotating space colonies and space elevators can be built. Actual
research on the topic? Did you guys ever do that and to make
you "confident"? No, the confidence was there from the beginning,
based on the principle that the Wish is the Father of the Thought.
You guys WANT it to be true and that makes me "arrogant", though I in
fact can say the same of you as per the above definitions.

Yet I wouldn't call you arrogant, but rather "believers" and your
space colony stuff is the religion. Now, religious people can't be
called "arrogant" for being religious, can they?

As to NASA and other qualified people and institutions having
authority on the subject, doesn't mean they can't flip out,
especially when they need PR and know they will never have to prove
it in practice, plus the fact that some spokesmen kan be "believers"
also. (NASA definitely declined wanting to build a space elevator:
see here: http://www.spaceelevatorblog.com/?cat=4
quote: "NASA is NOT interested in the Beam Power Competition to power
a Space Elevator, nor are they interested in the Tether competition
to build a Space Elevator.").

A few examples from the past:

1) Around 15 years ago there was made an investigation to build a
solar power plant in the Sahara at the Atlantic cost, to generate
electricty for the German industry. As the distance is around 5000
km, electrical cables would give too large losses, so the electricity
produced would be used to electrolyse seawater and the thus produced
hydrogen gas would be fed through a pipe line to Germany, where it
woud be burned to generate electricity in steam power plants. Now,
let "arrogant" me do a few simple calculations on my five fingers:

typical efficiency to generate electricity from solar heat produced
steam: 10%
typical efficiency of electrolysis: 60%
typical efficiency of a steam powered turbine to generate
electricity: 25%
Total efficiency: 0.1 x 0.6 x 0.25 = 0.015 = 1.5% - end of story,
not feasible for "arrogant" me!

Apart from this, hydrogen gas exudes through most metals - this pipe
line would have been a 5000 km long fuse, or have cost its weight in
gold to make it tight. Then the pump (actually compression) work
needed to transport the gas, would make the "efficiency" negative. I
don't know how many millions the German government paid to
various 'high qualified' consultants to work out the project (that of
course never was realized), but if they only had asked "arrogant" me
for a fraction of the costs, they would have saved a lot of money and
I would have been well off (bad luck).

2. In the late 1970-ies the Swedish government supported a solar
project to power a domestic area (Ingelstad) with solar power, using
focusing mirrors. All that had prestige and scientific authority were
involved, but none considered that solar radiation in Sweden is for
80% diffuse and for focusing mirrors you need direct radiation. Thus
the project failed and the mirrors had to be replaced with flat ones,
alltogether giving much lower output than calculated and at a
multiple of the projected costs. I knew about the diffuse radiation,
but nobody would listen to "arrogant" me, as I tried to bring it
forward - I was stopped in the newspapers, after a reportage was made
at my home on evidence I had.

So much for authority and qualifications of various institutes -
think yourself first, before believing!

Sincerely,
an arrogant nut.