Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
Spinning space station design
DSL:
If you can lay hands on a July 1976 National Geographic, Isaac Asimov took a science-fictional look at a mile-wide spinning-wheel space station. My copy is ... somewhere ... but here's a link to a recent commentary about it.
A wheel station would have the advantage over a module-and-counterweight structure in that you'd be able to move throughout the habitable-gravity area without having to move through the hub. I'd have to think the ring would be self-reinforcing to a degree.
For some entertaining nonsense, the original "Star Fleet Technical Manual" from the 1970s contains schematics for a giant spinning space station with, among other things, docking facilities *around the rim* for Enterprise and her fleetmates. Quite apart from the increased gravity, I'd hate to be the one who had to navigate a ship into one of those docks. Mr. Sulu'd be earning his pay, he would ...
ADDED LINK. Duh.
Is it cold in here?:
With a central docking hub, you could put the approaching craft into a slow roll and match the station. Control inputs would have effects that would surprise an untrained human. Alternatively, you could despin the hub during docking maneuvers and spin it back up again for the convenience of people leaving the docking hub.
pwhodges:
I'm worried by the idea of a bearing of that size to allow that decoupling; the effect of a jam would be devastating.
Kugai:
Admittedly, anything like B5 is a long way off, but it does use a Rotational Section (Ie the cylindrical main body) to maintain gravity and has an inner central core which is used as a large garden to grow foodstuffs and to create a natural CO2/Oxygen exchanger. JMS, in many cases, tried to stick close to what was scientifically known and postulated about building such a station while giving it a futuristic bent.
Precipice:
--- Quote from: DSL on 20 Jan 2012, 10:10 ---For some entertaining nonsense, the original "Star Fleet Technical Manual" from the 1970s contains schematics for a giant spinning space station with, among other things, docking facilities *around the rim* for Enterprise and her fleetmates. Quite apart from the increased gravity, I'd hate to be the one who had to navigate a ship into one of those docks. Mr. Sulu'd be earning his pay, he would ...
--- End quote ---
Take a closer look at those schematics. It doesn't say anywhere that it spins, and it should be obvious that it doesn't. The floors don't follow the curve of the rim, they're flat. With a spin-induced gravity, if you stood near the end of a pie-shaped segment, it'd feel like the floor is tilted at a 30 degree angle. It must generate artificial gravity using the same technology as the Enterprise.
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