Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
Spinning space station design
jwhouk:
Okay, I'm officially TOO much of a "layout" geek.
(Link to the full size view & the Wikia article here.)
Skewbrow:
Hmm. Correct me, if I'm wrong, but I don't think that there is a "spaceside" and an "Earthside". Remember that the axis of rotation is fixed with respect to the distant stars. IOW, the space station, unlike the Moon, won't have one side continuously facing the Earth. The Moon does that because tidal forces of Earth's gravity have locked Moon's own rotation to synch with its orbital period.
Ok, so the axis of rotation doesn't need to be exactly fixed, because there is precession, but I don't see that helping us here.
Actually I am little bit worried about this, because it would mean that one side of the station is facing the sun half the year. That surface could become very hot.
Space engineers, help me out!
Deadlywonky:
Skew, yes it could, however as has been mentioned by Von Braun, this could be used as a source of power (using mercury if memory serves), also because the station doesn't 'point' (rotational axis) towards the sun, there will be some parts heating as others are cooling, (see apollo PTC or 'barbeque roll') or if the station is designed to be orientated with one part permanently in shade then passive radiators could be mounted for heat venting, with an internally pumped heat transfer medium between the exposed parts of the body and the rads.
(one idea that occurs to me is that if you were ejecting 'waste' (and not worried about water preservation) it could be used as a heat sink, but the thought of boiling hot urine is not very pleasant)
jwhouk:
Actually, I'm going off of the basis of the first time we saw the station.
Think about it - the "floor" of the station would be the outside of the torus, due to the gravitational spin. If the station is oriented where the center hub has one end "pointed" towards the Earth, and the other "pointed" upwards towards the stars, then the two "sides" of the torus would logically face earth-ward and star-ward.
Skewbrow:
@jwhouk: Just to make sure. What I was trying to explain is that the pointed end in that image will not always be pointing towards the Earth. If it is pointing towards the Earth now, 45 minutes (or half an orbit) later, it will be pointing away from the Earth. That is because the station is spinning, so conservation of angular momentum prohibits that pointy end from always pointing towards the Earth. It could always point at e.g. the North Star, or Sirius, or your favorite constellation, though.
The Skylab, the Space Shuttles or the ISS could/can move in a way that they always show the same side to us. You achieve that by making them slowly spin about another axis once per revolution. When the station has artificial gravity created by spinning, you give up on that. The faster spin rules.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version