Just to bring back some old ideas from this thread. This a taxi type concept from 2019. Time flies...
Quote from: lamontagne on 01/24/2023 11:41 pmJust to bring back some old ideas from this thread. This a taxi type concept from 2019. Time flies...Noice! The stacked floors (about 16m dia.??) would have incrementally-increasing AG from perhaps Mars level to perhaps somewhat beyond Earth-level. Would the ports spin the taxi up, or would the taxi spin to match the station and port? Best regards!
As promised, Earth from a space station at 1 rpmand 3 rpm
Definitively a case of a typical driving conversation:-Look at that love!-What, where?-Oups it's already gone.At least in this case it comes back pretty fast
As promised, Earth from a space station at 1 rpmand 3 rpmDefinitively a case of a typical driving conversation:-Look at that love!-What, where?-Oups it's already gone.At least in this case it comes back pretty fast
Quote from: lamontagne on 01/25/2023 02:57 amAs promised, Earth from a space station at 1 rpmand 3 rpmNICE! Now we know what it looks likes.QuoteDefinitively a case of a typical driving conversation:-Look at that love!-What, where?-Oups it's already gone.At least in this case it comes back pretty fast Well, in LEO you are moving over the Earth pretty quickly. The ISS orbits the Earth every 90 minutes, so for every revolution of the station in LEO your frame of reference on Earth moves about 92 miles (148 km). Plus if you wait an orbit, your next orbit may be over a different spot on Earth... Anyone think this will be a high value activity for tourists?
Quote from: Coastal Ron on 01/25/2023 03:40 amQuote from: lamontagne on 01/25/2023 02:57 amAs promised, Earth from a space station at 1 rpmand 3 rpmNICE! Now we know what it looks likes.QuoteDefinitively a case of a typical driving conversation:-Look at that love!-What, where?-Oups it's already gone.At least in this case it comes back pretty fast Well, in LEO you are moving over the Earth pretty quickly. The ISS orbits the Earth every 90 minutes, so for every revolution of the station in LEO your frame of reference on Earth moves about 92 miles (148 km). Plus if you wait an orbit, your next orbit may be over a different spot on Earth... Anyone think this will be a high value activity for tourists?1 rpm definitively. 3 rpm, perhaps not so much. The bigger the window, the higher the value.
I see no point in berthing a 1200mT Starship to any station. I expect a fueling station to be a separate element, and the Starship should reach a LEO station pretty much empty, except for 50 or so mT of landing fuel in a spherical tank.Having many thousand mT of fuel on a station itself to fuel visiting Starships seems like a bad plan.
I took a few hours this morning to create a Shared Google drive.
An algorithm do do this:
As promised, Earth from a space station at 1 rpm
Quote from: lamontagne on 01/25/2023 02:57 amAs promised, Earth from a space station at 1 rpmSweet. Now do one from EML-1, when the Sun is behind the station, at 1.0 and 1.4 rpm.
Quote from: Solarsail on 01/24/2023 11:06 am(1) Visiting vehicles either need to rotate themselves to dock, (2) or the station must de-spin to receive a docking vehicle.But you missed a third option - the visiting vehicle does not spin, but the docking capture mechanism on the center of station does counter-spin up to match the orientation of the non-rotating visiting vehicle, grabs and secures it, and then de-spins to match the rotation of the station and then docks the vehicle.
(1) Visiting vehicles either need to rotate themselves to dock, (2) or the station must de-spin to receive a docking vehicle.
(1) - The challenge with putting the onus on the visiting vehicle to rotate is that for vehicles like the Starship it is yet another operating environment that the engineers need to build into the vehicle before it can leave the ground. And since every deliver to a station will be different regarding the mix of cargo and passengers (i.e. weight & balance in the flying world), that forces the smaller of the two masses (i.e. the ship vs the station) to take on the burden of aligning with the station. I've advocated that this is not a good approach.
(2) - It would be impossible to live on a rotating space station if it keeps changing gravity from "normal" to zero-G. Everything would have to be secured during the zero-G time, and all daily activities would likely have to stop. This would be impractical for a rotating space station that has people living on it, not just doing temporary research.
John actually relies on a larger version of this (i.e. mechazilla) in his large station with the large central dock, but if the visiting vehicle is just a space-only cargo/crew vehicle that only transits between the rotating space station and a zero-G transit/warehouse station, then docking the vehicle to the side of the station in the center of rotation shouldn't be a problem.Visiting vehicles would only dock at the zero-G transit/warehouse station, so they don't need to be modified to support a rotating space station, and the cargo/crew vehicle only travels between the local stations it supports (propellant could be methane from waste processing or hydrogen from water electrolysis). Plus, now you don't have to pack everything onto your station, since you can have virtually unlimited warehousing just a short trip nearby. Likely there would be daily supply trips, just like businesses here on Earth get daily supplies.
I think there have to be windows, but my preferred arrangement is a cupola type module at the centre of rotation, within which there is a "cage" that counter rotates such that experiments (and people) attached to it experience zero gravity. I mocked up a 3rpm cupola rotation - assuming one is stationary within the cupola.
A computer program modelling all of this out sounds tempting to me, though I don't know the physics involved in it. It could generalize to many station geometries, at least as far as they all exist in some N-dimensional tradeoff in many aspects. Though you then need special case handling for some steps; The program would probably need to fully distinguish structures that should be at 0g from those that shouldn't, so it can constrain things down to what would actually work, and not need to characterize solar panel wings performing a Tacoma-Narrows impression.
Quote from: lamontagne on 01/25/2023 02:57 amAs promised, Earth from a space station at 1 rpmSweet. Now do one from EML-1, when the Sun is behind the station, at 1.0 and 1.4 rpm.You caould also do it from EML-1, when the Earth is behind the station, and hte station is lookingat the night "sky". Be sure to include constellations.Are you rethinking 3 rpm?
Quote from: lamontagne on 01/24/2023 03:19 pmI took a few hours this morning to create a Shared Google drive.Well done.But.The format changed overnight. Yesterday, it looked like I had the ability to change my profile pic and upload files. Today, it just shows a list of station and such, and there is only a "download all" button.
Quote from: JohnFornaro on 01/25/2023 10:29 amQuote from: lamontagne on 01/25/2023 02:57 amAs promised, Earth from a space station at 1 rpmSweet. Now do one from EML-1, when the Sun is behind the station, at 1.0 and 1.4 rpm.The Earth isn't visible in that configuration.