Coriolis Station Physics

I am proper LOVING this thread!

(I have nothing scientific to add, other than the more experiments we try the better our understanding....)

I bet there is am information page in the Stellar map tool that details key info about each station.. so we will probably find that this is a one off exercise (shame).

It would be interesting to know if rotational spin will be linked to the local planet standard gravity..
 
The design reminds me of my space tech washing machine. So the question is what happens when the bearings start to wear. Will the space station starts to vibrate laterally? Will our ships compensate for this or will docking suddenly be a massive challenge

This was very tongue in cheek. I like the design and I think its really cool
 
I had and I still have problems to understand centrifugal artificial gravity in space. Thanx to some videos I managed to understand it better and how it can work. But for me it is silly.
I dont know how exactly I can explain why it looks silly to me because my English is very limited. But Ill try if someone would want to try and explain it to me why everywhere it is shown in same way.

So to be able to feel any Gs in centrifugal station solution we must have speed of outside of that spinning circle. So from center we must use ladder and go from center to that outside ring.

But then I think that it would be hard to hold balance while standing on that outside ring that will act as "floor".
And moving in direction with ring movement would be different than moving opposite (different G force).
That is how I think about that artificial gravity solution.

In this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QuLgl2vKis guy using kerbal space program game tried to achieve that and explain all that centrifugal artificial gravity.

Here is real life experiment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EHwT33YCAw

Here are another explanation of centrifugal artificial gravity with some examples used in movies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdECeGRXIxQ

Here are some informations and examples of artificial gravity.
http://www.racetomars.ca/mars/ed-module/artificial_gravity/


What bothers me is that in most of that experiments about centrifugal artificial gravity is that they try to always put humans on outside ring. For me it is weird.

I wonder why they dont want to use solution that would make floors that would direct rotation force directly under human and giving him ability to hold balance without problems.

Here is pic that I created showing what I mean.
1920111_1454758888093509_2078312172_n.jpg


In my opinion option 2 is most reasonable.
 
Here is pic that I created showing what I mean.
1920111_1454758888093509_2078312172_n.jpg


In my opinion option 2 is most reasonable.

Your second example just doesn't work.

Consider yourself at a fairground on a merry-go-round. By spinning it around, you're "flung" to the outside. In your second example, the people would slide down the walls to the outer hull.


Also remember, what's keeping the people on the outer hull in (1) is the fact they have inertia in the direction/speed of rotation, but the outer hull is in the way, so is constantly changing their vector. This force is similar to gravity. But it's of course not the same.

On earth, if you throw a ball up, it will go straight up, and straight down. On your example (1), the ball will go up and veer off to right due to its momentum (to the right) due to the spin.

Or consider someone throwing a ball in the opposite direction to spin at the exact same speed as the spin (or as good as). The ball in effect would end up as being stationary, floating in a single spot. To everyone in the station, rotating around with it, the ball would appear to be flying along and "up" at the same level above the hull forever.
 
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Ummm... If you know the velocity of your ship (eg: 250m/s) can't you just fly along its length/width to approximate its size?

One minor issue with this - the station is rotating, so the edge of any face of the station is never at 0kms relative to you, for as I understand it your drive speed tied to the point of interest for your instance, in this case the centre of the station.

I suppose you could try this on a face that is at 90 degrees to the axis of rotation (the 'front' or 'back'), and assuming you have timed the rate of rotation you can then figure that into your calculations. If I had Alpha access and hadn't let my maths atrophy over the last 20 years I might have have a go at working this out....
 
One minor issue with this - the station is rotating, so the edge of any face of the station is never at 0kms relative to you, for as I understand it your drive speed tied to the point of interest for your instance, in this case the centre of the station.

I suppose you could try this on a face that is at 90 degrees to the axis of rotation (the 'front' or 'back'), and assuming you have timed the rate of rotation you can then figure that into your calculations. If I had Alpha access and hadn't let my maths atrophy over the last 20 years I might have have a go at working this out....

Yes... I think you'll get a fairly accurate measurement out of it.

Neil said:
Exactly... Just fly:-
a) Along it and time it.
b) Fly across the rotating face and time the distance from edge/corner to middle (& double). Might take a couple of attempts.

I don't have the Alpha so I can't do this

But it should give a good approximation of the dimensions to tens of meters?

So aim to fly along its side, along its axis, and time flight from front to back... Done.

Then do the same across the rotating front/rear. Time flight from corner or edge to middle and double... Done. :)
 
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Here is pic that I created showing what I mean.
1920111_1454758888093509_2078312172_n.jpg


In my opinion option 2 is most reasonable.


2 could work (for a short time), but only if the stations spin was constantly accelerating. And even then, you'd be pushed outwards.

Try this, go get a bucket with an handle on it. Fill the bucket with tennis balls, or a little water (or pretty much anything with some weight).
Then take the bucket, and swing it in a circular arc over your shoulder, going all the way round (like a cricket bowler) keep doing this fast enough, and the water / tennis balls wont fall out of the bucket when it's over your head.
The inertia of the balls want's to move in a straight line. By curving its trajectory, you're constantly applying force to the balls.

It's the same force that makes you slide along the back seat of your dads car when your folks turned a corner too fast. The car is turning, but your body want's to keep moving straight.
 
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It would be cool if someone from FD would drop in and post the actual stats of the Coriolis type station, i.e. size and rate of spin, as well as the diameter of the hanger bay.:D
 
It would be cool if someone from FD would drop in and post the actual stats of the Coriolis type station, i.e. size and rate of spin, as well as the diameter of the hanger bay.:D

More fun to work it out... And later to find out it was correct ;)
 
And moving in direction with ring movement would be different than moving opposite (different G force).

Yeah, you get heavier or lighter. I hope this is accurately modelled when we're walking around. Maybe they could have a Half-Life style jumping puzzle, where you can jump further in one direction than going the other way.
 
For those who are interested, this ancient article covers centrifugal artificial gravity and it's issues quite well. When walking towards rotation you will have a feeling as if you are walking up a hill, walking away will feel like walking down a hill. Habitats over 1km in radius should have a minimum of issues. Beyond that things can be done to reduce the effects like designing the interior of the station so the majority of movement is done in directions perpendicular to rotation. Also when people do have to walk parallel to rotation more than a few feet you could confine that mostly to hallways. That way when people are walking down the hall way they will feel as if they're are walking up or down a handicapped ramp.

So if I were to design a station or a ship I'd try to have all hallways parallel to rotation and the rooms off of the hallways longer perpendicular to rotation. That would mean in your everyday life you'd seldom feel the effects of rotation because the room shapes would mostly force perpendicular movement. You would only have to walk parallel in a hallway. A ring shape would be perfect for this sort of design.
 
If your flying around in ships with no artificial gravity, you wouldn't want to walk straight in to a station with 1G. You would need to be put in a wheelchair if you went from days/weeks in 0G to that, like real astronauts have to :p

..And yea the 2nd design in that pic is a physical impossibility unless the idea is to throw everyone against the wall/out of the windows :D
 
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If your flying around in ships with no artificial gravity, you wouldn't want to walk straight in to a station with 1G. You would need to be put in a wheelchair if you went from days/weeks in 0G to that, like real astronauts have to :p

..And yea the 2nd design in that pic is a physical impossibility unless the idea is to throw everyone against the wall/out of the windows :D
Thats now, in a thousand years who knows what genetic alterations will have been made, plus Pilots have implants, they could feasibly exercise your muscles with electrical signals while at the same time making sure you had 8 hours sleep.
 
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