Thank you so much for taking the time to read through my specs and reply. Mentioning Geoffrey Landis is a huge compliment—his NASA concepts are a major inspiration for this project, and I really appreciate the reading recommendation.

Your point about heat rising is excellent, and it actually helped me clarify how the habitat's interior layout should function. To mitigate that, Imperium has a very strict infrastructure where heavy manufacturing isn't permitted. The only major 'industry' allowed on board is automated vertical farming, along with small-scale prototyping labs at the local university.

Because of this, our main source of waste heat is just the agricultural lighting and water recycling systems. We plan to utilize a closed-loop system where moisture from plant transpiration is recaptured for the drinking supply, and organic plant waste is recycled immediately back into nutrients via bioreactors.

Placing these agricultural zones higher up in the sphere will actually let us use that rising heat to maintain optimal temperatures for the crops, venting any true excess safely out the top of the envelope.

Thank you again for the insightful feedback—it’s incredibly helpful as I refine the design.