Window dimensions.

Mike C wrote:
> when one scales up from Island 1 to Island 3, one finds that
>the increase in structural mass, soil, and atmosphere results in
>there no longer being a need for a separate radiation shield.

That's what I was looking for, as I followed this thread.
The figures of 50 feet hull, and 40 feet windows are just bonkers.

Somewhere back in the archives, I submitted a review of the "Concrete space
colonies" article. Shepard speculated on making blocks of window material of
equal thickness of the hull (~1.6 meter), but said that this was a complete
unknown.

I tossed a couple of drawings into a folder here.
The shielded windows are plagiarised from an article I ran across (No credits,
but I'll gladly include them if somebody slaps me across the face with info).
Picture 'slits' of windows like this going circumferentially around, on the "roof" in
a stanford torus. Basically the same effect as the old studies, but somewhat
more "streamlined" and simple. It's also more failsafe, with multiple panes of
glass to hold pressure.

We also went over the idea of "light pipes" here. Expand on the idea of a
channel or duct for light, with mirror to send light where you want. If a cylinder
has several sub-floor decks under the inner colony cvolume, then light can still
come in from "above" via light pipes.
Another thing to consider in looking over the old colony designs, is this: Do we
really need equal areas of window for a land surface? Couldn't light come in
through smaller areas through the "floor" above, and diffuse onto the land
opposite? This makes the windows smaller & less vulnerable, and saves
surface area for land & sub-floors.

The sphereoid colony is a compromise shape, allowing a large inner floor level
like a cylinder, but without the basic & inescapable instability of a cylinder.

Another quibble with something I've seen on these recent threads: The scarcity
of materials on the Moon, arguing against certain design features.
If we need thousands of tons of a latex sealant, then we'll import hydrocarbons
from an NEA. If we need several meters of H2O over the inner area for
radiation shielding, then we'll go to the NEAs, instead of Lunar topsoil (silly
idea! Even though it's based on real science, it's silly economics. Why soft-land
a nuclear rector to bake regolith, or use solar power which shuts down half of
the time, when there are floating mountains & icebergs just a few km/sec
away?)
Less delta-V than going to/from Luna typically, _FAR_ better resources, better
energy availability, instant colony location with everything you need to make
more colonies.

Really, every argument we use against the fanatical Martian fans, goes even
more for Luna. It's not even a good mine site!