Rotating wheel space station

Rotating wheel space station.Wernher von Braun 1952 concept

A rotating wheel space station is a hypothetical wheel-shaped space station that rotates about its axis, thus creating an environment of artificial gravity. Occupants of the station would experience centripetal acceleration according to the following equation,

a = -\omega^2 r

where \omega is the angular velocity of the station, r is its radius, and a is linear acceleration at any point along its perimeter.

In principle, the station could be configured to simulate the gravitational acceleration of Earth (9.81 m/s²).

History

Both scientists and science fiction writers have thought about this concept since the beginning of the 20th century. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky wrote about using rotation to create an artificial gravity in space in 1903. Herman Potočnik introduced a spinning wheel station with a 30 meter diameter in his Problem der Befahrung des Weltraums (The Problem of Space Travel). He even suggested it be placed in a geostationary orbit.

In the 1950s, Wernher von Braun and Willy Ley, writing in Colliers Magazine, updated the idea, in part as a way to stage spacecraft headed for Mars. They envisioned a rotating wheel with a diameter of 76 meters (250 feet). The 3-deck wheel would revolve at 3 RPM to provide artificial one-third gravity. It was envisaged as having a crew of 80.[1]

In 1959, a NASA committee opined that such a space station was the next logical step after the Mercury program.[2] The Stanford torus, proposed by NASA in 1975, is an enormous version of the same concept, that could harbor an entire city.

NASA has never attempted to build a rotating wheel space station, for several reasons. First, such a station would be very difficult to construct, given the limited lifting capability available to the United States and other spacefaring nations. Assembling such a station and pressurizing it would present formidable obstacles, which, though not beyond NASA's technical capability, would be beyond available budgets. Second, NASA considers the present space station, the ISS, to be valuable as a zero gravity laboratory, and its current microgravity environment was a conscious choice.[3]

However NASA has explored plans for a Nautilus X centrifuge demonstration project. If flown, this would add a centrifuge sleep quarters module to the ISS. This makes it possible to experiment with artificial gravity without destroying the usefulness of the ISS for zero g experiments. It could lead to deep space missions under full g in centrifuge sleeping quarters following the same approach.

Gallery

In fiction

Many space stations and ships use a rotating design.[4]

1968: Arthur C. Clarke's novel 2001: A Space Odyssey was developed concurrently with Stanley Kubrick's film version of 2001. In it, the rotating space station Space Station V provides artificial gravity and features prominently on the book's first-edition cover.

1985: The novel Ender's Game features a multi-ringed station, called "Battle School," with varying levels of simulated gravity. As the characters ascend through the station towards the center, there is a noticeable decline in the feeling of gravity.

1999: The Japanese manga and anime Planetes has its main story set in "The Seven," the 7th wheel orbital station, and a 9th is under construction by 2075. In the Zenon trilogy (Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century, Zenon: The Zequel and Zenon: Z3), 13-year-old Zenon lives on a rotating space station owned by the fictional WyndComm from 2049 though 2054, but it is not designed in a way that would allow for artificial gravity through centripetal force.

2003: In the re-imagined series Battlestar Galactica. Ragnar Anchorage is a three ringed weapons storage station, and the civilian ship Zephyr is a luxury liner featuring a ringed midsection.

2013: The Neil Blomkamp film Elysium has an enormous space station called Elysium much larger than a similarly-shaped Stanford Torus. It supported a city and habitat for the upper castes of earth.

2014: A vessel very similar in design to the NASA-designed Nautilus-X was used in Interstellar. The ship in that film was used as a staging station also capable of interplanetary flight.

2015: Thunderbird 5 in the ITV TV show Thunderbirds Are Go features a rotating gravity ring section on the space station which features a glass floor to observe the Earth below. The series is set in the year 2060. The NASA designed Hermes in the film "The Martian" was capable of space travel to Mars.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rotating wheel space station.

References

  1. ↑ Ryan, Cornelius (editor; also associate editor of Collier's magazine—it is stated on the dust jacket flap that half of the contents of the book initially appeared in the Collier’s magazine series of articles "Man Will Conquer Space Soon!") Across the Space Frontier New York: September 1952, Viking Press. See Chapter 4 by Willy Ley--"A Station in Space" Pages 98-117; frontispiece of book has Chesley Bonestell illustration of entire wheel space station in orbit above Central America; pages 106 and 107 has cutaway illustration of interior of wheel space station; page 100 mentions that it is designed for a crew of 80. In the introduction on page xii it is mentioned that the rotating wheel space station will orbit 1,075 miles above Earth and will cost $4,000,000,000 in 1952 dollars.
  2. ↑ Space station
  3. ↑ "Home, Sweet Home". NASA. 25 May 2001. Archived from the original on 29 September 2006.
  4. ↑ List of popular fiction space stations; not all centrifugal: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpaceStation
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