Redesigning O Neill cylinders

Hello,

Try to check this : http://lifesci3.arc.nasa.gov/spacesettlement/Contest/Results/2004/winner/index.html
in the light and power chapters.
In my design the most of the energy will be achieved by solar panels, but I agree that they are a very big investition. I was thinking "how about a nuclear power plant" in space. The only question I have is if an object of carbonic foam for example is put in void, in space there are 190K in the shaded part and more in the lighed part. (I didn`t calculate the second one :) ) ; can the nuclear power plant generator make the heat exchange.
This is a very important fact ...

Andrei Costea

ANTIcarrot wrote:
> From: Ian Woollard [mailto:ian.woollard@...]

> That's commonly supposed, but may not necessarily be the cheapest way
> to go.

Yes, but the whole point of the Island designs was to create a *nice* place
to live. If the inside is covered in factories instead of trees I'm not sure
many people would want to live there. ;)

> There's no shortage of power.

There would be practical upper limits though. An earth microwave-power
reciever measures something like 6*7 miles IIRC. The beam in that case is
spread out due to the atmosphere (don't want to fry birds or 747s!) and
could be narrowed significantly, but only to the point where it begins to
cause heating problems and thus efficiency loss in the reciever. Does anyone
know of a study into alternative power sources?

ANTIcarrot.
NB: Alternative in this case = not direct solar illumination. ;)