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If we're talking space colonies that house large numbers of people wouldn't they be large enough to spin for artificial gravity?
by kcb 1y ago
If we're talking space colonies that house large numbers of people wouldn't they be large enough to spin for artificial gravity?
- m4rtink 1y agoYeah, just spin it - like Oneil Island 3 or similar (Stanfort Torus, etc.): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder That's a 1975 design using quite conservative 1950s tech - lots of bulk steel and aluminium with unprocessed Lunar regolith for shielding.
- marcosdumay 1y agoThere's some calculation around that say you can't make usably-large habitats by plugging them in a tether and spinning them... so people almost universally decided that you can't make usably-large habitats that spin. I guess that's the nature of internet arguments.
- schiffern 1y agoI'm interested in spin gravity but I've never heard of this before. Where can I find these calculations?
- marcosdumay 1y agoI don't remember where you can find it. But that tether will have to lift the entire weight of your ship, plus a share of its own weight. The longer you make it, the heavier it will be, and you get a problem similar to a space elevator, and before you get to city-sized, it seems to require exotic materials already. The choice of materials impose a maximum size for any design that rotates as a whole.
- bluGill 1y agoMaybe. Is that good enough or not is an open question. Also is it feasible or is the engineering too difficult for some reason?