Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
Spinning space station design
Carl-E:
Depends on the size of the station. The mass of a person coul be negligible if the station's large enough (think a BB in a tire), but get a large group in one place...
"..tonight's assembly is cancelled. Please stay in your rooms until balance is restored"
DSL:
Hm. I'd want in place some sort of regulation, similar to a fire marshal's, limiting occupancy in any one room. The net effect of that would be to have people more or less evenly distributed around the torus. A big enough torus, and enough people, and small discrepancies could be compensated for with the usual station-keeping maneuvers.
pwhodges:
I would say that it doesn't matter most of the time if the centre of gravity drifts a little away from the geometric centre of the structure. However, with docking being performed along the central axis, it would be advisable to restore the C of G there to make it stationary in preparation for docking to take place.
akronnick:
The mass of the station is so much bigger than the mass of anything that would be moving around on it that any wobbles or eccentricities would not be noticed.
On a small boat, you have to be careful how you move so you don't tip the boat. On a big boat it doesn't matter because you're not big enough to make that much difference. The big boat still tips, but the displacement is measured in millimeters.
Plus, the more people you have moving around randomly, the more of their motions are cancelled out.
Kugai:
--- Quote from: akronnick on 09 Feb 2012, 15:15 ---The mass of the station is so much bigger than the mass of anything that would be moving around on it that any wobbles or eccentricities would not be noticed.
On a small boat, you have to be careful how you move so you don't tip the boat. On a big boat it doesn't matter because you're not big enough to make that much difference. The big boat still tips, but the displacement is measured in millimeters.
Plus, the more people you have moving around randomly, the more of their motions are cancelled out.
--- End quote ---
Except on the Black Pearl
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