a variation on shielding and sunlight

Friends,

I had an interesting idea and I'd like to hear what people think of
it.

While I like a LOT of what Marshall Savage has to say, I just don't
buy the idea of long term zero-gee space habitats. I think people
will want gravity and sky no matter where they go. However, he is
right that all the shielding and reflecting sunlight and so on does
complicate things. And, he makes a good point when he says that it
makes space colonization harder if you can only build habitats as
monolithic projects. It's kind of having to build Chicago all at
once, instead of one building at a time.

Okay...how about this...

Make the shell modular. You have something that looks like one of
O'neill's cylinders but it can come apart in ring-shaped sections.
Since it does not rotate, there is very little stress on it. In
addition, you do not bother with windows or mirrors. Just have a
simple solid shell. Collect the sunlight outside the shell and pipe
it with fiber optics, etc. through the endcaps.

Inside the shell, each "ring zone" could contain a habitat of any
configuration. You might have a torus and a couple of "starter
habitats"--small spheres on a 5-km. tether, each one with its own
"ring zone." As the city grows, all one needs to do is add new rings
or pull the whole shell apart for a few days and replace old habitats
with new ones. The endcaps of the cylinders could be used as
platforms for spaceports, etc.

This would probably be more expensive, at first, than designing one
shell per habitat, but I think it would be more flexible and perhaps,
in the long run, more economical as it would facilitate gradual
expansion of a space colony.

I look forward to your comments.

Mark