Subject:
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Re: Where's all that gravity coming from?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.space
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Date:
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Sat, 10 Mar 2001 19:53:53 GMT
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Viewed:
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511 times
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In article <G9znzq.A6H@lugnet.com>,
Kyle D. Jackson <flightdeck@sympatico.deletethisspamblock.ca> wrote:
> Another idea might be to dock at the spin axis. No circular
> docking flight path is required. Picture a coke can on the
> spin axis, rotating with the station. When a ship is coming
> to dock, motors start spinning the coke can opposite to the
> station, so that to the people on the incoming ship the coke
> can appears to stop spinning and become stationary. The
> ship docks with the coke can, the people yank off the pull
> tab and climb inside. The motors then allow the coke can
> to start spinning again to synchronous with the station.
> Once that happens, the people get out and begin to climb
> out to the rim, experiencing a steady increase in "gravity"
> on the way (thus they will probably be going "down" a ladder).
Better would be to spin the docking ship-- spinning the coke can
the other direction means changing the rotational speed of the whole
station. It'd me much cheaper to spin the docking ship, then you don't
have to do anything weird at all on the station.
You're absolutely right about the other part-- putting the docking ring
where there's "gravity" has entirely too many problems to make them worth
solving. :)
The spin-the-ship thing is a pretty old idea; you can see this happen (and
happen, and continue happening) in 2001: A Space Odyssey with the Blue
Danube Waltz for accompanyment (The _whole_ Blue Danube Waltz. It takes
hours to dock that ship, and you get to see every moment of it on film...)
The trouble, really, with any sort of counterrotation is you can't really
do it without changing the rotational velocity of the other object, which
would then require a fuel expenditure to speed it back up/slow it back
down.
> [Desperate attempt to stay "on-topic"] Anybody built
> anything weird like this out of LEGO? How many things
> went flying across the room? :]
I would guess that in .space that discussions of how stuff in space would
work such that we could eventually model it in Lego would be "on topic". :)
-JDF
--
J.D. Forinash ,-.
foxtrot@cc.gatech.edu ( <
The more you learn, the better your luck gets. `-'
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Where's all that gravity coming from?
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| (...) As an example, if your structure is spinning at 2 rpm, you have to go out to 225 mm from the spin axis to get 1 g. And you have to be standing with your head towards the spin axis (like a hamster in a wheel). I got thinking about what this (...) (24 years ago, 10-Mar-01, to lugnet.space)
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