Station needs solar shade

--- In spacesettlers@y..., rmenich@m... wrote:
> Some window manufacturers offer a "wire reinforced glass" (c.f., do
a
> yahoo search on this term) product. You can see it in old school
windows
> and in prisons. Perhaps this or other types of reinforced glass
might
> come into play in large habitat windows.
>
> Ron
> ******
>
> Gturner6PPC@y...
> 11/08/01 02:52 PM
> Please respond to spacesettlers
>
> To: spacesettlers@y...
> cc:
> Subject: [spacesettlers] Station needs solar shade
>
> Hi again, everybody.
>
> I was looking at the stations that have their axis oriented 'up',
and
> use a 45 degree mirror to shine light back down onto other
> reflectors, and then into the station. In the designs where the
> second reflectors are exterior to the station, so the light comes
> from large windows on the outside of the station, no provision is
> being made to block out the sun's rays coming in directly, on each
> side of the second reflector. This will allow sunlight that's
> hitting the station directly, instead of from the first reflector,
to
> shine into the interior of the station. This will generate a
> pulsating light, where a couple times per rotation the ambient
light
> level doubles. This occurs as soon as a clear light path exists
from
> where you are standing, to the sun. To each side of the reflector,
> there exists a clear shot to an outside view. The sun will appear
> sweep through this area as the station spins.
>
> To prevent this maddening effect, much like trying to live next to
a
> flashing neon sign, there should be another reflector, or some
other
> opaque structure, between the station and the sun. This will
assure
> that only light coming off the first reflector will provide
> illumination.
>
> P.S. I went back over my previous data on skylight thickness. A
> worse problem with the small windows may be the need for 8000 miles
> of vacuum sealant, to seal the edges of all those 6'x6' windows.
> Larger windows reduce this, but require thicker glass. If costs
were
> known, a lowest-cost size would be easily calculated, balancing
glass
> cost versus sealing and mounting costs.
>
> Trying to place the glass under tension, in a cylindrical or
> spherical shape, doesn't seem to help any, once the diameter gets
big
> (past a hundred or so feet). To try and treat the station-3
windows
> as a pressure cylinder results in glass that's many, many feet
> thick. However, if glass fiber were included, the strength
increase
> might offset this problem.
>
> There's bound to be a clever design solution to this mess. But on
> the bright side, there's less need to recycle, since if you can
ship
> this much glass to a station, it's the equivalent of 100,000
> residents throwing away a six-pack of bottles every day, for
several
> decades.
>
> P.P.S. My previous cost estimates are likely to be high, since I
was
> using Pyrex, which is very expensive. Float glass would be much
> cheaper, though I think we'd have to use tempered glass, which
gives