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30 points

Can we not do the whole the rotat8ng ring artificial gravity yet?

Like. Why are we not doing this? Can we not do this?

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79 points
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If you haven’t noticed, the space stations we do build require international cooperation and are basically just a bunch of rocket sections stuck together. The ISS, in all of its glory, took years to assemble and has some serious design constraints.

A project of that magnitude would require lots of highly specialized parts to be launched into orbit first, or, we somehow manage to build an entire fabrication facility in orbit where it can process raw materials.

The concept of a rotating ring is simple. Developing the means to build it is hyper-complex.

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18 points

You don’t have to build a whole ring. You just need a boom and a counterweight.

I guess the hard part would be that a truncated-circle-sector-shaped room is more awkward to launch than a rocket-section-shaped one of equivalent usable space. (Also, you need a tube and a ladder down to a docking port at the center of mass, because spaceships can’t line up with a target swinging through an arc.)

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2 points

You climb up to the center, not down.

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7 points

We definitely have the resources and aptitude to accomplish all of that. It’s just that our leaders would rather spend it fighting each other instead.

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5 points

Not THAT complex. They already have several prototypes they’re planning on testing. They won’t be giant rotating stations, but rooms of a few meters across. It doesn’t take much rotation to get useful amounts of g’s.

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22 points

Not THAT complex.

How hard could it be? It’s not like it’s rocket science or anything.

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5 points

basically just a bunch of rocket sections stuck together. The ISS, in all of its glory, took years to assemble and has some serious design constraints.

Station Alpha intensifies

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2 points

You can get spin gravity from two starships rotating around one another while linked by a cable.

Or two of any ship. But starship’s the only one being discussed for mass production and in-space operations.

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0 points

Moon factory, rail gun

I mean it sounds simple, obviously doing that we be a ton of work, but it seems very feasible. And doing that would be an incredible starting point for space industry. From there, we could send out automated probes to capture trojan asteroids from earths orbit and launch them into lunar orbit for collection. We could even put them in a non stable orbit that bleeds off orbital speed and eventually they bleed off enough to land while staying in almost one piece depending on the type of asteroid.

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3 points

How do you bleed orbital speed around a body with no atmosphere?

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1 point

No, we can’t actually. That’s why it isn’t done. It’s science fiction, even if the math checks out.

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14 points
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A space station with artificial gravity would be a good project, rather than sending a man on Mars just to take a selfie.

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6 points

There’s no real technical reason why we couldn’t do it. The main component lacking is political will

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