Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
Spinning space station design
ZBixby:
Well what if we made it more like a giant Frisbee and have the docking station on the logical top or bottom of the station? that way any added weight isn't throwing off the spin by adding unnecessary weight to a side that is making a large rotation?
Torlek:
--- Quote from: pwhodges on 19 Jan 2012, 15:35 ---Now try docking your transport on it, and then realise you've thrown it way off balance.
--- End quote ---
That's why you have a de-spun central docking hub. Saves your space station from the wrath of Sir Issac Newton and allows for physical comedy when entertaining guests.
--- Quote from: jwhouk on 19 Jan 2012, 22:03 ---Well, if you want to get to space, you generally have to get to either Florida (Kennedy SC), New Mexico (NM Space Facility) or California (Edwards AFB).
Unless, of course, Hannerdad has a space elevator located somewhere nearby.
--- End quote ---
I'm thinking more space plane. Hannerdad's station is in LEO given how frequent Hanners said the sunrises were, elevators don't work so well that low. I'm thinking something Skylon-esque or NASP-esque.
jwhouk:
--- Quote from: Torlek on 19 Jan 2012, 22:13 ---I'm thinking more space plane. Hannerdad's station is in LEO given how frequent Hanners said the sunrises were, elevators don't work so well that low. I'm thinking something Skylon-esque or NASP-esque.
--- End quote ---
Considering that there was a change in universes at some point in recent history, a combination of the X-30/33 and SpaceShip One/Two from Virgin Galactic.
Skewbrow:
--- Quote from: Akima on 19 Jan 2012, 13:48 ---Which in turn implies that Hannerdad's orbital is quite large, to avoid the problems of nausea induced by gyroscopic coupling etc. Since this is a comic, let's say <calculator noises> his station has a radius of 1000m so that it can provide a 1g centripetal acceleration while turning at just under the one revolution per minute that is supposed to be safe even for motion-sickness susceptible people.
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Thanks for the links (also the last time this topic came up) explaining Coriolis-induced problems of rotational gravity. But in a way the fact that you resorted to a frigging calculator to (effectively) estimate Pi over 30 (radians per second) squared up to the whopping accuracy of a single significant digit makes me sad. :cry: I know, that's the way it's done nowadays. This is not meant as a personal criticism, please don't take it as such. Just my old school thinking, where mental arithmetic is the default.
@Torlek: Thank you so much for reminding everybody that a space elevator would be mostly useless for getting to a low orbit station! I guess you could ride a space elevator up a significant fraction of the distance to geosynchronous orbit and drop off
to end up on a suitable elliptical orbit approaching the space station at perigeum, but the velocities would not match, so you would still need a lot of thrust to be able to dock into the space station. May be the resident experts of space travel can help me here :-)
pwhodges:
How many sliderules have you got? I can still lay my hands on three.
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