Sunlight and nightime for tori

Just to clear up a point:-

The fields and forests depiction of O'Neill style habitats was
actually the artistic license of Don Davis who was commisioned by
NASA to create a lot of their artwork.

If you look at pictures in the NASA AMES summer study of 1975 you'll
see the interior designs there are much more like ordinairy towns.

Don Davis has web pages of his own in which he actually says that he
objected to the 'shopping centre style' design shown in previous
pictures and wanted to show just how close to an Earth-like
environment could be achieved.

--- In spacesettlers@y..., "Dr. Omni" wrote:
> From: John Frazer
> To:
> Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2001 12:17 AM
> Subject: [spacesettlers] Re: Sunlight and nightime for tori
>
> [snikt]
> Yes, a "Savager".
>
> I'm really sorry, but I simply can't help it ;-). The temptation of
> designing a colony that somewhat looks like a city under a dome,
allowing
> people from inside to see outside, and vice-versa, is irresistible
for me...
>
> [snikt]
> Think also about Sheppard's idea for a 1.6 meter thickness of
> optical glass for a colony hull. This should satisfy the savager in
> you.
>
> Indeed. I was not aware of Sheppard's glass colony when I wrote that
> message. Much more practical than a water shield. (Unless you're in
the
> Outer Solar System, when in fact it will be much easier to get
water rather
> than silicon.)
>
> [snikt]
> This may look artificial, but then again, this is the roof, only a
few
> hundred meters up. Forget about making the people forget
> they're living in a space colony.
>
> That's a "O'Neilian" trait that I really don't like. O'Neil designs
always
> have a lot of forests and lakes and rivers and rolling hills.
Sometimes I
> think that I'll see fairies and satyrs jumping from behind a tree
in the
> illustrations. Don't get me wrong, O'Neil has all my admiration,
but I just
> think that he was too romantic with that sort of detail. (As
perhaps I'm too
> romantic with the transparency thing. ;-) I would design the
population
> sector of the habitat as a city with the best possible filling of
the
> internal volume - that would imply tall buildings, or multiple
coaxial
> levels. Greenery? Yes, but confined to parks and plazas, as in any
normal
> city.
>
> [snikt]
> Might be simpler to simulate this with automatic shutters over
> the windows. More individual moving parts, since each window
> has a shutter, but this moving shade sounds complicated. One
> error, and it's stuck, and no more cycle until it's fixed. With
> individual shutters, they could rely on redundant circuits for the
> motors, and even manual controls if all else fails.
>
> The moving shade could be simply another rotating structure,
coaxial with
> the torus, spinning a bit slower than the torus in order to provide
a
> 24-hours cycle. It could have a frictionless (e.g., magnetic)
connection
> with the torus at the hub, and it would rotate endlessly without
any danger
> of eventually being stuck. Anyway, I agree that that could also be
done with