Battling Stations

[Jack Schitt]

It's been bugging me where I've seen the Orbis design before. The penny has finally dropped...

http://www.feelingretro.com/toys/Games/battling-tops.php

 

[Rhaedas]

The Stanford torus design, and the idea of having a separate agriculture torus, has been around a long, long time. Long before Battle Tops.

 

[Jack Schitt]

I guess my smiley needed to be bigger.

But if we're being unnecessarily serious and picky, the Orbis isn't technically a Stanford torus. It doesn't face its star and there are no mirrors for controlling the day/night cycle.

And Battling Tops pre-dates the Stanford design by 7 years.

(Before anyone points it out, I know there were other wheeled space station designs prior to the 1975 Stanford proposal. )

 

[Rhaedas]

Okay, you beat me. I could have sworn that the Stanford torus was long before 1975, but must have been thinking of previous designs.

Personally, I'd prefer the O'Neill sphere, the generation III ones that have weather systems, in my future, but I digress.

 

[Jack Schitt]

I would love to see a couple of O'Neill cylinders in ED but I don't know if the Cobra engine can support objects that big. It would be about the same diameter as the Orbis (not including any mirror system) but at least twice as long and possibly more. Flying down the length of one of those and looking through the windows at the "landscape" 8km "below" would be amazing.