First post of two, habitats

>> From: Costea Andrei
>> And how do you think we could create the circadian cicle
>> on a space settlement...

absalomdraconis wrote:
> Well, if the light comes in through the sides, then we can simply
> rotate the mirrors a little slower than the habitat (as in degrees per
> second, not meters), and simply time it to give us the length of days
> and nights that we want.

Clever, but if the overall geometry resembles O'Neill's then the light
makes a triangle wave rather than the rough square wave to which we are
accustomed.

>>> From: Brett Sargeant
>>> It is based on an O'Neill Cylinder.

>> From: "Dave Logsdon"
>> That was my assumption too, until I realized that Clarke's book
>> was copyrighted in `73, three years before O'Neill's!

GKO's first major publication on this subject was in Physics Today,
October(?) 1974, well before his book. But anyway, I don't think Rama
had windows.

>> . . . I'm not saying we need to start calling the habitats
>> `Clarkes', . . .

Heh, this reminds me of the novel _Clarke County, Space_, about a colony
- spherical, i think - which is not in Clarke orbit; its main city is
named Lagrange, and it's not in Lagrange orbit either.

absalomdraconis wrote:
> If I was put in charge of such a [Ringworld] project, then I'd try to
> design the ring so that individual segments were traveling at just
> the right speed to maintain their orbit. The actual population areas
> would be quite far from the center of mass. This pushes your populous
> away from the sun if the center of mass is between sun and habitat,
> or it allows the sun to pull them towards it if the habitat is
> between center of mass and sun. This design would even allow you to
> effectively have two rings in the same orbit. Note that this would
> also probably require reflectors for the inner ring, and maybe using
> lakes with clear bottoms to light the outer ring.

I am not seeing what you mean.

>> From: "victoriatangoman"
>> How do you demolish an older building in a Habitat in order to put
>> up a higher density building as the Habitat grows? Do you let
>> "gravity" bring the building down, like they do on Earth? . . .
>> Alternatively, is it cost effective to bring down a building
>> "brick by brick?"

Since weather in a small habitat is mild, buildings are likely to be
very lightly built: just enough to provide steady footing and
soundproofing. It's an interesting question though.

>> I think that the road grid will be laid out in the design stage. . . .

This recently came up in conversation - see http://ogre.nu/wp/?p57

--
Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
obsolete since 21 December 2001