If we're talking space colonies that house large numbers of people wouldn't they be large enough to spin for artificial gravity?
If we're talking space colonies that house large numbers of people wouldn't they be large enough to spin for artificial gravity?
Yeah, just spin it - like Oneil Island 3 or similar (Stanfort Torus, etc.): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder
That's a 1975 design using quite conservative 1950s tech - lots of bulk steel and aluminium with unprocessed Lunar regolith for shielding.
There's some calculation around that say you can't make usably-large habitats by plugging them in a tether and spinning them... so people almost universally decided that you can't make usably-large habitats that spin.
I guess that's the nature of internet arguments.
I'm interested in spin gravity but I've never heard of this before. Where can I find these calculations?
I don't remember where you can find it.
But that tether will have to lift the entire weight of your ship, plus a share of its own weight. The longer you make it, the heavier it will be, and you get a problem similar to a space elevator, and before you get to city-sized, it seems to require exotic materials already.
The choice of materials impose a maximum size for any design that rotates as a whole.
Maybe. Is that good enough or not is an open question. Also is it feasible or is the engineering too difficult for some reason?