Artificial Biospheres In Space

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Gturner6PPC@y... wrote:

>> I just sketched out another simple concept that takes 3 or 4
mirrors
> to provide vertical illumination coming down from along the axis.
> I'm not sure if someone else has thought of it or not.

Yep. Already been discussed in detail, but if it helps you get up to
speed, I'm sure we'd be happy to do the dance one more time.

>It should be simple to make, though.
>
> I stuck it on my blog here.
> http://armor.typepad.com/bastardsword/2004/02/space_stations_.html

I checked out your proposed design. You seem inclined to base your
designs on mathematical and physical principles - that's good!
Here's a hint that should yield some interesting results - look to
the issue of solar concentration within that central light tube that
runs down the axis of the cylinder and then see what the resulting
temperature would be and what materials could withstand such a
temperature.

If you want a shortcut to the answer then you can find it buried
deep within the dungeons that are the archives of either this list
or SSI-List.

Hint - There's a reason the central light tube concept hasn't
supplanted the standard O'Neill Cylinder Solars.

Compare to the *light corridors* under the mountains for the issue
of light density. More room for dispersal down there. A large
portion of the endcap is used to bring the light into the cylinder
and then it is broken into three beams, each of which is directed
under the mountain ridges.

The light pipe has a very narrow point of entry along the axis and
then must be contained within the pipe.

Of course, we could just stick with the O'Neill solars and deal with
the inherent constraints.

TangoMan