Questions regarding Lewis One

On Jul 29, 2005, at 9:45 PM, Xenophile wrote:

> --- 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.

Lighting for people to see is trivial compared to the light necessary
for closed system agriculture. That runs out at about 50 kw continuous
per person. All other purposes may be around 10 kw per person,
although that's a very soft estimate.

As I've said before, the Lewis One solar arrays are much too small.
Our new design puts power generation on separate solar power satellites
and beams the power to the colony (there are body mounted radiators for
emergency power).

BTW: in case you don't recognize the name, I wrote the Lewis One paper.

>
> 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)
>
The International Space Station's (ISS) most important legacy may be
jump-starting space tourism. Consider: the first space tourist, Dennis
Tito, was supposed to go to the Soviet era Mir space station. Under
pressure from NASA, Russia de-orbited the Mir which resulted in Mr.
Tito going to the ISS instead. Now the Mir was a terrific space
station, but by the time of Tito's trip it was also old, smelly,
crowded and probably not all that nice. The ISS was brand new, shiny,
much more roomy, etc. Mr. Tito came back to Earth with glowing accounts
of how great space is. Would his experience have been as good on Mir?

Al Globus
Evolvable Systems Group (http://ic.arc.nasa.gov/projects/esg)
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.