Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
Spinning space station design
Is it cold in here?:
To be pedantic, it was the humans in the B5 universe who didn't have artificial gravity.
Kugai:
I am aware of that, which is why ships of the Hyperion Class were zero G ships and their stations rotated or, like the Omega's, Earth Force One, Liners like the Azimov and the large Explorer Class ships had rotating sections. Human's didn't gain Gravtech until the Shadow War era with their co-operation with the Minbari during it.
And yes, yes you are.
Is it cold in here?:
I have only begun to show my potential for pedantry.
Could you prevent bone loss with regular sessions in a small centrifuge, so you wouldn't have to spin the whole station? Or combine recreational EVA with bone therapy by putting spacesuited humans at opposite ends of a spinning tether for a few hours each?
pwhodges:
Exercise sufficient to maintain your musculature at 1g levels would probably do much of what's required. Possibly.
DSL:
--- Quote from: Kugai on 21 Jan 2012, 16:12 ---
--- Quote from: DSL on 20 Jan 2012, 18:24 ---
--- Quote from: Precipice on 20 Jan 2012, 13:34 ---
--- 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.
--- End quote ---
Huh. I remember my copy (long gone) saying it spun. And remembering, even as a sixth-grader, that it made no sense.
--- End quote ---
Take another look. The 'Buildings' of the station are set on the outer rim. Looking at it it seems to have the same constructional layout as Babylon 5 as to the relation of floors and decks layout. Admittedly, unlike B5, the Trek Universe has the benefit of Artificial Gravity, so it probably doesn't rely on rotational action gravity wise as that station does, so I'm guessing that the rotation is more of a slow 'Barbeque Roll' much like the Apollo spacecraft used during their journey to the moon.
--- End quote ---
Oh, I'm not prepared to go to war over a piece of Star Trek lore most folks would prefer hadn't happened (Roddenberry basically told Franz Joseph Schnaubelt to go to town and make s**t up because at the time, no one had figured out Star Trek would live on and on and on in multiple incarnations) ... I just remembered (because as a 10-year-old nerd I was familiar with the idea of rotational "gravity") looking at it and thinking, it's meant to spin for gravity but those floors make no sense; they'd effectively be like giant hills and I'd hate to try to dock with those docking pods on the rim.
It's just Star Trek. Entertaining, but I don't go there for the science. Don't get me started on the transporter.
I prefer the "2001" space station and the one Asimov and Mion depicted in the July 76 Geographic, anyway. More attention to science. (and I think, from the Mion paintings, the Asimov station has a hub dock that counterrotates to allow more than one ship at a time to dock.)
Incidentally, I've read that engineers who saw the wheel in "2001" cringed, to a man wondering why the under-construction section was coupled to the finished, spinning section. Build it, they cried, then spin it up and couple it to the spinning section.
But enough nerdery from me. Happy birthday, Hannerdad!
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