Questions regarding Lewis One

--- In spacesettlers, "r_buttigieg" wrote:

> G'day,
>
> I have been reading the Lewis One Space Colony paper and have some
> questions that I would like to raise.
>
> Firstly, I'm sceptical about using electric lights for illumination
> of the habitat. Theres going to be a awful big electricity bill.

I think the assumption here is that electricity will be so obscenely
cheap that this will not be a problem. I don't know just how cheap,
or if it will actually be cheap enough, but that is the idea.

> How much electricity would be required?

Good question. Anybody here have a good answer?

> A better way may be to pipe natural sunlight in with fiber optics.

This is my currently favorite way of doing such things for Stanford
Torus, Bernal Sphere, Crystal Palace, and maybe even O'Neil
Cylinder. Even if windows are used, I see no reason that fiber
optics can't be used for household (and restaurant, department store,
etc.) lighting. After all, it would available (using such basic
things as shutters and filters) in intensities ranging from off to
moonlight-level to full daylight to brighter than the Sahara at noon
on the Summer Solstice, and to have as much IR, UV, or any visible
colors you could ever need or want.

> This is now being done in buildings using hybrid lighting. See
>
> http://www.ornl.gov/sci/hybridlighting/techoverview.htm

I like it. Of course, you could also...

> You might also be able to concentrate the infra-red and pipe it in
> as a general heat source for domestic and industrial use.

My favoritism with fiber optics comes in part from the ability to do
this. Even stove-top cooking could be done this way. BTW, in Israel
there have been experiments in which as much as 8 watts of energy
have been sent down a single fiber. Now, these fibers are only about
0.1 mm thick, so a 1 mm * 1 mm bundle of fibers could carry as much
as 800 watts of energy. A stovetop burner generally uses less than
2,000 watts, even when deep frying or wok use, so 2.5 mm^2 would be
enough to supply even a big stovetop burner with cooking power. My
GF's stove has three burners of about 16,500 mm^2, and one large
burner of about 25,450 mm^2, so if we assume that the smaller burners
have a maximum of 1500 watts, and the big one is a 2000 watt monster,
then 8 bundles (1*1 mm) could provide enough cooking power. In fact,
a 3*3 mm bundle could provide sufficient power, with a burner's worth
to spare. Even if we assume that a "bundle" would have to have
enough coating, insulation, etc. that its diameter is doubled, I
don't imagine that it would take more than one or two 1 cm "heat
lines" (bundles of bundles) running into a house in order to meet all
heating needs, including cooking, heating bath water, and so on.
Make it three heat lines if the habitat has a wintry climate (the
inhabitants love to ski, or insist on a White Christmas).

http://www.photonics.com/todaysheadlines/XQ/ASP/url.lookup/id.4201/QX/
today.htm

> What are the habitat modules made off? Could you get rid of the
> seperate radiation shield and construct them from re-enforced
> mooncrete? I'm sure there was such a proposal for a Stanford Torus

The extra mass to be rotated would require a much stronger shell.
Not that it couldn't be done, I just wonder if it would be worth it,
just to be able to say "our shell is all one piece."

> some years ago. Intergral shielding would make the habitat more
> solid, sure beats living in an aluminum can.

As Mike Combs has pointed out, it's more like living in a battleship
hull, surrounded by a six-and-a-half foot thick concrete wall.

> Is the Lewis One video available for download on the net?

I'd like to know that myself.

> ta
>
> Ralph Buttigieg

Xenophile (who wants to build the hull from a composite of glass
fibers embedded in aluminum, in which case we'd be making a lot of
glass fiber anyway)