I was reading your notes on the problem of getting light to your hydroponics without transferring too much heat through the fibre optics.
Have you heard of dichroic glass reflectors? They’re used in halogen lights - which are quite efficient, and run very bright - but unfortunately they also run very hot. The manufacturers came up with a solution in a form of glass that is transparent to visible light, but reflects infra-red. Thus, most of what comes out of the front of the lamp is visible light, but much of the heat is reflected out of the back, where it can be safely convected away. Just a thought.
If you weere feeling particularly efficient, you could pass the light from the fibre optics through an array of dichroic mirrors. The visible light would just pass straight through, but by directing the mirror array, you could send the heat somewhere useful. Presumably your space station is recycling its water - and the simplest way to do that is by distillation. If you focused the mirrors onto a heat exchanger, you could use the heat to boil waste water. Pass the resulting steam into another heat exchanger on the shaded side of the station, and it will condense back into pure water.
As far as I understood the problem, the IR needs to be filtered out before going into the fibers. The problem is that the light needs to be focused onto the fibers by a lens, and if the entire spectrum is still there, the fibres will get too hot and burn out.
But yes, reusing heat for something useful is a common thing to do, and I’d assume they’d be doing that, I can’t go that deep into the engineering, what with me not being an engineer. The problem is, of course, re-using heat does not make it go away. You still have to get rid of it, and the only way in space to do that is through the radiators. The issue you start facing with reusing heat is that on each re-use, you’ll end up with heat at lower temperatures, which requires more radiator area.It’s quite the conundrum.
For example, if the cooling cycle is just regular water used elsewhere, and I let it condense, the maximum temperature I can get on the heat exchange medium is somewhere below 100 degree celsius. The radiators of the pods are currently assumed to run at 150 degrees celsius. It would require about 60% more radiator area to get rid of all that heat at 100 than it takes at 150 on the back of the envelope, I think? Really not sure, don’t have my tools around at work…
First of all, your light collection apparatus is going to be huge - but it doesn’t need to be heavy. Your primary light collection device could be a large collection of mylar film (space blanket) mirrors, supported on very lighweight frames. With no gravity or wind to worry about, they don’t need to be particularly strong.
You could focus the output of these mirrors on your dichroic reflector array, and only then pass the resultant light beam into your fibre optic bundles. Any heat you don’t want can just be reflected back out into space - heat you do want can be focussed onto heat exxchangers.
The water doesn’t necessarily have to boil at 100 degrees. That’s entirely pressure dependent. If you drop the pressure, water will boil at a lower temperature (pressure reduction is easy - you have plenty of vacuum available). Conversely, you can boil water at 150 or 200 degrees, by allowing the system to pressurise (that’s what happens in your car radiator).
I can’t think of any reason why any of this equipment needs to be enclosed in atmosphere. If you have the whole thing outside, in vacuum, you remove the problems of damp, dirt, mould, and microbial growth. It would require very little maintenance.
Have a look at this solar furnace:
Now imagine something similar built in space, where weight, weather, and material strength are no longer such major problems.
The solar furnace concept is essentially the core of the Prometheus Engine, a station that I haven’t made a graphic for yet (I’m afraid it’s going to come last - it’s going to be a tough one, what with essentially a refugee “camp” for 10’000 people built on top of it)
In my experience there would still be a decent amount of it left hanging (the mirrors will heat up and will need cooling), but yes, filtering the IR out by reflecting it right back could indeed help a lot. Did not think of that…
I’m aware. On the other hand, I’m also aware that supercritical water tends to do quite a number on its confinment vessel. So I’m not at all sure how maintenance friendly this would be.
Actually, the umbrellas on top of the pods should about be the right size ( I think they’re 150m in diameter). It turns out there’s a lot more light in space than on earth…
Back on track after the holydays, and back to the one station I had used to make a proof of concept to see if I even could get anything presentable with my meager talents. I liked it back then, but I have to admit that I like the new version more. Turned out better than expected, to be honest:
"We do not need to control the earth. We do not need to control the Orbits, nor the moon. Rather, we set our gaze outwards, to where human control has not yet taken hold. Venus. Mars. The Asteroids. Then Jupiter, Saturn, and the outer system. And finally, the Stars! While everybody is busy squabbling over the ruins of a lost civilisation, we will build a new one, one in which human potential can finally be fulfilled! By that time, earth will beg to be saved by our rule, or vanish into forgotten insignificance!
I know what many of you are thinking: Is it not similar words, similar ambitions that brought us the Lunacy, and through it, ruin? These concerns are justified. But the situation presenting itself to us is entirely different. We are not the disparate, conflicting interests of a planet full of apes driven by rumors of gold. We are one! One will, one intent, one voice! And together, as that one voice, we command resources and industry with an authority that the Demini could only have dreamed of! And our voice is not one of narcissistic lunatics delusioned by their own grandeur. Our voice is one of reason! One of temperance, and one of wisdom, born not of power, but of shared suffering. A voice that can endure for centuries without wavering! For the first time in human history, we do not just have the technological means to fulfill this dream, nay, this obligation! For the first time we also have a social order stable, strong and wealthy enough to do so! If we don’t take upon us this burden now, if we falter and fail, humanity may never get this chance again! We are its last, best hope!"
- Liu Xiao Dan, president of the Huangshan Union. Excerpt from her speech outlying the Intercorps strategy to the labour board in 2143.
… Too much? Starting to hammer out prose for some faction backgrounds that have conceptually lived in my head for quite some time now. On a scale from 1 to 10, how unhinged do you find that quote? Since I don’t have an editor, I thought it might be a good idea to ask some random people on the internet…
The right amount of unhinged, reminds me of things you often hear megalomaniacal people say in reality or fiction. Bioshocks Andrew Ryan comes to mind.
delicious and refreshing 
Looks good
Starting to hammer out prose for some faction backgrounds that have conceptually lived in my head for quite some time now. On a scale from 1 to 10, how unhinged do you find that quote? Since I don’t have an editor, I thought it might be a good idea to ask some random people on the internet…