22 ms·

You can get rotating artificial gravity even with bolos, though wheel-shaped stations would be better. If you store the station's water supply between the inte

You can get rotating artificial gravity even with bolos, though wheel-shaped stations would be better. If you store the station's water supply between the interior and exterior walls, you get a decent amount of shielding that way, and you need the water anyway so it's no extra mass. Alternatively, you could capture a near-earth asteroid and just tunnel your space station into it, using the material inside the asteroid for construction material. I suspect any program to capture a near-earth asteroid and construct a station with artificial gravity would be approximately the same cost as a Mars mission.

nabla9 7y ago
If there were only any near term intention to capture asteroids. Everything is technologically possible and it's funny to say how it could be done. But if you look at budgets, timetables etc. it's not looking very likely. If we are going to Mars in next 30 years it's going to be some other path.
- chrisco255 7y ago
  With Space Force being the newest branch of the U.S. military, look...if the CIA wants to make up some shit about Martians having WMDs and therefore we need to invade the planet immediately...I'm willing to go along with it.
  - ryanmercer 7y ago
    So I used to listen to Coast to Coast just as entertainment before it turned into a giant infomercial, I now listen to Mysterious Universe which is much better and much more entertaining and definitely worth a listen if you like crazy/paranormal things approached with lots of skepticism and humor, but a semi-regular guest on Coast to Coast claims that the CIA was on Mars ha! The guest claimed that as part of a CIA project in his teens, he was on mars via teleportation and saw a young Barack Obama there. It's pure unsanity and obviously not fake but it's a hell of a rabbit hole to go down purely for amusement. The sad part is, at least from my impression, the guest really believed that he had been part of these alleged (fantastical) events. Here are some articles about it: https://www.wired.com/2012/01/obama-mars/ https://www.wired.com/2012/01/obama-mars/ https://www.inverse.com/article/6741-remembering-that-time-teenage-barack-obama-went-to-mars https://www.inverse.com/article/6741-remembering-that-time-t... The amusing thing is though there are FOIA documents from the CIA that mention Mars as a remote viewing target, for example this one https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001900760001-9 https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-0... So who knows, maybe the CIA has really had a legitimate interest in Mars at some point, they've taken interest in far stranger things (maybe they took too much of their own drugs from MKUltra).
narag 7y ago
Another option: build a rotating habitat inside a cave.
- m4rtink 7y ago
  That seems like a much better bet - the asteroids own gravity should be negligiable & you should be able to get reasonably sized cavern rather easily. Also a non/slowly spinnong asteroid is in general easier to dock with.
0xBA5ED 7y ago
>you could capture a near-earth asteroid and just tunnel your space station into it, using the material inside the asteroid for construction material This is a cool idea. Maybe you could get the whole thing spinning and have really efficient gravity generation due to its mass.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- fit2rule 7y ago
  This had me thinking - are we looking for objects in space that should not be spinning, but are spinning? This'd at lest let us know there is life out there with the same problem, right? I really wonder if that's part of the checklist for 'an odd object in space which we should investigate further' ..
  - m4rtink 7y ago
    Any artificial extrasolar objects that use spin for gravity would be far to small for current telescopes to resolve, not to mention detect their spin, if they are circular.
    - fit2rule 7y ago
      I'm guessing we've exhausted the search for such objects in our own solar system ..
      - m4rtink 7y ago
        Oh, right - tha's actually a good idea & one can measure rotation rates of asteroids: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fast_rotators_(minor_planets) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fast_rotators_(minor... BTW, the recently discovered extra-solar asteroid also had quite some rotation IIRC.
  - kgilpin 7y ago
    I don’t think it would be too long before the aliens evolved away from the need to spin. There would be so many advantages to adapting to zero G.

nabla9 7y ago

If there were only any near term intention to capture asteroids. Everything is technologically possible and it's funny to say how it could be done. But if you look at budgets, timetables etc. it's not looking very likely. If we are going to Mars in next 30 years it's going to be some other path.

chrisco255 7y ago
With Space Force being the newest branch of the U.S. military, look...if the CIA wants to make up some shit about Martians having WMDs and therefore we need to invade the planet immediately...I'm willing to go along with it.
- ryanmercer 7y ago
  So I used to listen to Coast to Coast just as entertainment before it turned into a giant infomercial, I now listen to Mysterious Universe which is much better and much more entertaining and definitely worth a listen if you like crazy/paranormal things approached with lots of skepticism and humor, but a semi-regular guest on Coast to Coast claims that the CIA was on Mars ha! The guest claimed that as part of a CIA project in his teens, he was on mars via teleportation and saw a young Barack Obama there. It's pure unsanity and obviously not fake but it's a hell of a rabbit hole to go down purely for amusement. The sad part is, at least from my impression, the guest really believed that he had been part of these alleged (fantastical) events. Here are some articles about it: https://www.wired.com/2012/01/obama-mars/ https://www.wired.com/2012/01/obama-mars/ https://www.inverse.com/article/6741-remembering-that-time-teenage-barack-obama-went-to-mars https://www.inverse.com/article/6741-remembering-that-time-t... The amusing thing is though there are FOIA documents from the CIA that mention Mars as a remote viewing target, for example this one https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001900760001-9 https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-0... So who knows, maybe the CIA has really had a legitimate interest in Mars at some point, they've taken interest in far stranger things (maybe they took too much of their own drugs from MKUltra).

narag 7y ago

Another option: build a rotating habitat inside a cave.

m4rtink 7y ago
That seems like a much better bet - the asteroids own gravity should be negligiable & you should be able to get reasonably sized cavern rather easily. Also a non/slowly spinnong asteroid is in general easier to dock with.

0xBA5ED 7y ago

>you could capture a near-earth asteroid and just tunnel your space station into it, using the material inside the asteroid for construction material This is a cool idea. Maybe you could get the whole thing spinning and have really efficient gravity generation due to its mass.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
fit2rule 7y ago
This had me thinking - are we looking for objects in space that should not be spinning, but are spinning? This'd at lest let us know there is life out there with the same problem, right? I really wonder if that's part of the checklist for 'an odd object in space which we should investigate further' ..
- m4rtink 7y ago
  Any artificial extrasolar objects that use spin for gravity would be far to small for current telescopes to resolve, not to mention detect their spin, if they are circular.
  - fit2rule 7y ago
    I'm guessing we've exhausted the search for such objects in our own solar system ..
    - m4rtink 7y ago
      Oh, right - tha's actually a good idea & one can measure rotation rates of asteroids: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fast_rotators_(minor_planets) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fast_rotators_(minor... BTW, the recently discovered extra-solar asteroid also had quite some rotation IIRC.
- kgilpin 7y ago
  I don’t think it would be too long before the aliens evolved away from the need to spin. There would be so many advantages to adapting to zero G.