colony infrastructure

>From Ed Minchau 18 Mar 2001
>In spacesettlers@y..., Ian Woollard wrote:
>>All habitats have to solve (roughly most important first although they are
>>all vitally important)
>>...
>>- 'weather' patterns
>
>Weather considerations become important on a large-scale habitat like an
>O'Neill cylinder, Bernal Sphere, Rama, etc., but chances are that much
>smaller habitats will be built first, in the simplest design possible -
>something like Space Island is likely to have tightly- controlled "weather"
>in its hydroponics areas.

I've always doubted the idea of anything like actual "weather" in something
as small as even an Island 3. Yes, on Earth, clouds will form at about 600+
meters altitude, but that is in a much more varied environment. As you go up
on Earth, you get closer to cold space. As you go up in an Island 3, you get
to the point where sunlight from 3 windows converges in the center...
There's just not enough chaos in the system for weather in something as
small as a 7km by 30km cylinder. It was mentioned that the only way to form
rain, would be to inject dust, and cool the interior down so droplets are
stable. Cold, clammy, damp, depressing, and dull. Some "weather".
Sorry, but the "sky" won't be blue. On the other hand, sports will be as
nothing ever herd of down here. (I like Niven & Pournell's "Spirals" and the
idea of hang-gliding/skydiving from the center)

>>- water purification and sewage treatment
>>- food production
>
>Humidity control, air recycling, water purification and sewage
>treatment, and food production should all be handled by the same
>system, with wastes constantly being recycled in the hydroponics
>area; as much as possible, a fully-contained ecosystem.

I just like to point out that completely closed ELS isn't really neccessary
-for the same reason that the claim of Zubrin that "Only Mars has everything
a new branch of human civilization needs, in one spot" is false:
By the time you've got infrastructure to build one of these colonies -or
even to plant a colony or sizeable base on Mars- you've got an established,
evolved supply system capable of building a space colony. If the recyclers
can't reclaim 100% of something, we'll import a few hundred kilos a year to
make up for the losses.
The factory which built the colony is right there, a few meters/sec away,
with most of what's left over from an NEA.
Sure, we'll want to get as close as possible, but too often I read that one
of the things we need to develop before we can hope to live in space is 100%
CELSS.
For similar reason, trash control isn't too much of a problem; These people
take rocks apart (practically to the molecular level) to make homes & farms.
What is unreclaimable garbage to their systems?