I don't think you're anywhere close, Ken...so what's this cool idea (or
both of them) that you've been struck by?

jms

P.S. Oh, I forgot to mention...the New And Improved video demo of the
New And Improved Babylon 5 station has now been seen by the execs in charge,
and the result is *fantastic*. They're absolutely blown-out by it. The PR
folks are bringing in top-flight illustrators to do detailed renderings of the
new station for all their outgoing artwork, and the whole place is abuzz about
it. The most amazing thing about it, I think, is the incredible *detail* on
the thing, the subtle use of colors, and the rigorous attempts that Ron and
our tech folks are going through to try and build what something like this
would actually look like...working out the crucial points involved in creating
varying areas of rotation and gravity, counter-weights, balance points, zero-g
sections inside and outside, heat dissipation and light conservation, energy
resources, storage questions, everything.

I asked an associate at JPL to examine the video, and after studying it
for the better part of an hour, and discussing how it would work, he finally
concluded that yes, if we had the technology to get all the parts and pieces
there, this is *exactly* how it would be built (or at least one
version...there are plenty of possibilities). But this was absolutely solidly
grounded.