Windows without mirrors

[JoeStrout]

(08-04-2015, 10:36 AM)JoeStrout Wrote: Finally, there's barbells.  These ones are really complex.  Each bell obviously faces away from the sun half the time, but when its facing the sun, whether it's shadowed or not depends on whether the number of bells is even or odd, and (if odd) how big the hub is.  And of course even if you have a tiny hub and 3 bells, the sunlight is going to be going on and off at the same rate as your spin (e.g. every 15-30 seconds).  If that doesn't drive your residents up a tree, I don't know what will!

Actually it's worse than that, because if you have windows in your barbells, you also have secondary mirrors.  These will shadow the barbells when they would be facing the sun.  You'd get a little bit of off-angle light, and then pass into the shadow of the mirrors (dark except for starlight), and then back onto some off-angle light, and then pass into your own shadow (dark again).

Sheesh.  We'll certainly need to program the residents to complain if you actually build a colony like this!