Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT 2111-2115 (Jan 30 - Feb 3, 2012) - QC in SPAAAAAAACE!!! Week 2!
Arancaytar:
--- Quote ---the spinning section
--- End quote ---
It makes sense to keep the hub still, of course, because you don't want to make spaceships have to start spinning before docking. But now I'm wonder how they transfer from the hub to the spinning section without some awful acceleration or alignment problems. At best, I can imagine a lift-tube that rotates along with the rest, and that periodically aligns with a hatch in the hub. You'd have to time your entrance well to avoid getting squashed, though.
The same question was bothering me in Ender's Game, too.
akronnick:
Ever step onto one of the moving loading platforms that Disney World rides have? Same principle.
The transfer would happen in the hub, and since your still at the center, there's not much relative motion to deal with.
Skewbrow:
--- Quote from: Arancaytar on 31 Jan 2012, 01:11 ---
--- Quote ---the spinning section
--- End quote ---
It makes sense to keep the hub still, of course, because you don't want to make spaceships have to start spinning before docking. But now I'm wonder how they transfer from the hub to the spinning section without some awful acceleration or alignment problems. At best, I can imagine a lift-tube that rotates along with the rest, and that periodically aligns with a hatch in the hub. You'd have to time your entrance well to avoid getting squashed, though.
The same question was bothering me in Ender's Game, too.
--- End quote ---
As was explained by Akima and PWHodges in the "spinning space station" thread a practical solution is to make the docking spaceship spin at the same rate as the station. That is probably preferrable to docking with a non-spinning hub connected to the rest of the space station by a giant ball bearing or something. The latter solution would just move the problem from the hatch separating the spaceship from the hub to the connection between the spinning and non-spinning sections of the station.
Because the spaceship is so small (in comparison to the space station), the resulting centrifugal acceleration (proportional to the radius of the ship, or more precisely, to the distance from the axis of the rotation) is barely noticeable. More like a drift towards the "floor". I am assuming that the spaceship docks at its nose (or the rear-end), but I may be wrong about this.
Arancaytar:
--- Quote from: akronnick on 31 Jan 2012, 01:21 ---Ever step onto one of the moving loading platforms that Disney World rides have? Same principle.
The transfer would happen in the hub, and since your still at the center, there's not much relative motion to deal with.
--- End quote ---
Oh, I guess I misjudged the radius and the angular velocity you'd need for Earth gravity. I haven't actually tried to work the numbers out yet.
Edit: According to Wikipedia, centripetal acceleration is vē/r, and of course v is 2r*pi*(rotations per second), then for 1g at, say, 50m radius (if it's comparable to the ISS), you'd be going at 22.14m/s, which would be 0.07rps. I guess if your central corridor has a radius of 5m, the hatches would move relatively at about 2m/s. Which is still kinda quick. Maybe they keep the gravity somewhat lower than 1g, and the space station is a bit wider than that, and the corridor a bit thinner. At 0.8g, 100m and 2m, it'd be just over 0.5m/s.
Binary:
--- Quote from: Skewbrow on 31 Jan 2012, 02:21 ---As was explained by Akima and PWHodges in the "spinning space station" thread a practical solution is to make the docking spaceship spin at the same rate as the station.
--- End quote ---
And we can thank Clarke and Kubrick for an excellent representation of how this would look in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
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