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You can't really spin a small spacecraft to get rotation gravity - the rotation period would make it unworkable. However, you can connect two parts of your spa
by m4rtink 2mo ago
You can't really spin a small spacecraft to get rotation gravity - the rotation period would make it unworkable.
However, you can connect two parts of your space craft with long cables and then spin the resulting contraption around its now center of rotation & the rotation period will be manageable.
This concept has been nicely demonstrated & quite well popularized by the recent Project Hail Mary movie.
- triceratops 2mo ago> This concept has been nicely demonstrated In a real spacecraft? With humans?
- m4rtink 2mo agoAs I a say - a movie demonstrated how it would wourk & look like. As humman spaceflight goes, spin gravity has not been demonstrated in space yet. IIRC they wanted to try that with Gemini, same as with an early jet-pack, never actually got to it during that program. But effects of spin/circular motion have been demonstrated - Gemini 8 almost spun the crew to their death due to a stuck RCS thruster & Skylab astronauts made a video of them running around the inside of the big circular living space inside the station.
- adrian_b 2mo agoThe cheaper alternative to having 2 spacecrafts connected by a cable is to replace one spacecraft with a counterweight. However, having 2 identical spacecrafts would be more reliable, as there would be more chances for at least one of them to remain completely functional over the entire duration of the journey.