Is a Centrifugal Space Station Scientifically Possible ?

Newton figured out who ti measure and calculate the size of gravity and the motions of objects in a gravity field

he also figured out the relation between force and acceleration or change in velocity

things can accelerate by changing direction while keeping the same speed

nobody knows what gravity "really is" or what causes it

einstein showed that we cannot possibly tell the difference between accelerated motion or gravity if we are "inside " a closed container

the big fuss about the "high's Boson" is that it may have something to do with why there is gravity at all.

atmosphere has nothing to do with gravity force

you are not alone in your confusion in the 1600s nobody believed Galileo or newton either

they said. how can the earth be turning? if we jumped it would move out underneath us

The air within the spacestation would start to spin with the station much as coffee swirls when stirred and you wouldn't be free floating as the air would also drag you along causing you to fall to the outside walls. There would be a drift called the Coriolis effect which can be very disorientating but this reduces the larger and slower you make the space station.

There are problems with centrifugal force for space stations, one the structure has to be strong enough to hold 1 g of force all around. The Von Brauhn spacestaion was shown to require so much mass for the strength that it simply wasn't affordable. The Stanford Torus is purposely rounded like a bicycle inner-tube so that the tensile forces in the outer edge was more readily supported. Of course that never sopped people from blogging their versions of the Stanford Torus with a more square edge and claim a more efficient use of space when in fact they've simply made it an unworkable design. The Bernal sphere was proposed to again support the tensile forces by being a sphere. The O'Neill cylinder unfortunately ignores many of the principles of centrifugal force especially in the large tilting mirrors which would of course alter the rotation as they tilted as well as require extraordinary strength against several g's of gravity. The hollow asteroid concept also ignores the fact that it would just fly apart.

The other major problem is that the gravity changes much more rapidly from your feet to your head than on Earth. Indeed, you would have to make a space station, the size of the Earth to have centrifugal force mimic Earth's gravity exactly. It's suspected that rotations of more than 2 rpm would be the tolerable limit, preferably 1 rpm. That would make a diameter of 894 feet preferable in a space station which makes for a very large space station.

You have a point but it's one that's taken into account.

Much shorter answer - the air doesn't stand still, if the room is moving, the air is pushed/pulled along by the walls. If the station was somehow taken into space intact and put in orbit without spinning (rather than being assembled in space from pieces), and then thrusters began it spinning anything loose would "stand still" [that is continue to orbit the earth in the same path as the station] but the walls would eventually move in on the loose junk. Of course, everything bolted down would just move.

Since we would expect the walls to be radial to the center in one aspect, anything hitting them from floating would encounter a force "down" the wall - from the point of view of the center of the station all the points on the wall are moving in a curve "up" - like a racquet swung slowly at a ball.

Because the air would be affected by the same rotation - where else can it go - a helium balloon that floats in mid air in "zero gravity", would "float" on the slight gradient density and "rise" to the center of rotation.

The centrifugal effect is what provides the outward acceleration that passes for gravity.

Any point on the outer wall of the rotating space station is following the curve of a circle. Any "loose" object moving along with the wall, tries to go in a straight line (Newton's laws). However, the wall of the space spation will force this object to follow the curve of the circle.

In order to get the object to turn in a circle, the wall will have to accelerate the object sideways. To do that, it pushes it towards the centre of curvature. It is this force that is perceived as "weight" by the object or person "standing" on the wall (which will be perceived as a floor).

If this space station is in freefall, in space, then it is true that IF (a big if) an object is placed away from the rotating wall, AND the object is not "playing along" in the movement of the wall, then that object will be in freefall. However, in a "space station" you expect to find air (and walls) so that the object would eventually be entrained in a direction perpendicular to the radius going from the centre of the rotating station to the rotating wall. Air friction pushing on an object may be weak, but if it is the only force present, then it will eventually make the object move.

Of course, if there is a radial wall (from the axis to the outer "floor") turning along with the station, it will eventually hit the object and force it to "play along" in the rotational movement.

Mental exercise: Imagine a cylindrical space station, rotating along the long axis of the cylinder. Somewhere along the axis, is a cabin that is "rotating" (relative to the station) exactly the other way (this cabin is stopped relative to the outside of the station).

Someone in this cabin opens a porthole (looking into the inside of the cylinder), and places a baseball just outside the porthole. This ball is in freefall, so it just floats there (from the point of view of the guy in the central cabin).

For the other guy, standing on the rotating "floor", this ball moves sideways (parallel to the "floor") without dropping... until it hits a wall. Then, in addition to bouncing off the wall, it begins to drop. As it drops (towards the floor) it arcs back towards the same wall. With every bounce, it falls faster and faster. To the guy on the floor, the ball will look as if its gravity was oriented towards the wall (the ball keeps bouncing off the same wall) AND towards the floor.

Once the ball reaches the floor (and participates in the sideways movement of the floor), it no longer appears to have any sideways gravity.

Because our body has mass, the momentum that the spinning of the centrifugal is putting out will cause any thing with mass to be drawn away from it's center causing everything to "stick" to the wall facing opposite.

Example. when you are in a car the only think "touching" you is the atmosphere in the car yet your momentum at 50mph is well above 4g, the only way you would fell this is in any significant form would be if the car stopped suddenly.

The atmosphere would also be effected by the centrifuge there would have to be a ventilation system in place because the heavier element Nitrogen would start to separate from the slightly lighter oxygen over time.

No,

a centrifuge in space is not feasible. However your reasons are not why that is so. Let me explain:

In order to generate a gravity of one G, the contraption would have to spin fast enough that everything on it's perimeter weighs as much as it does on Earth. Imagine a section of torus say five metres across and a few metres long. This would have to have a mass of perhaps ten tons. As the monstrosity spins, this mass would need to be held in place by girders joined to the central spindle. Therefore you have to have girders strong enough to hold ten tons of static load in place

, plus a wide margin to deal with dynamic loads. Obviously you would need some pretty huge BHP steel girders to effect this, especially sine every section of the torus would similarly need support.

The all-up mass would be enormous, far too costly to be feasible, and in any case would would be the point? The ISS produces little enough benefit, why would a whirlyjig version one be any better.

Your analysis is incorrect. If you did bankrupt your nation by launching such a folly, and managed to get it to hold together long enough to test it, the resultant gravity would point radially outwards. Everything in your sector of torus would "fall" radially outwards, and you with it. The resultant accelerations would mimic (to some extent) Earth gravity right up to the point of structural disintegration.

Cheers!

It actually works because the others have already suggested. F = m w^2 r if w and r are held consistent then F = m "g" merely as we've right here. it type of appears like gravity till you carry out a touch experiments. as an party. in case you attempt to play pool the balls curve as they flow alongside the flat floor. in case you attempt to throw a ball to a buddy it curves in the air. I have performed those experiments on a merry flow round right here in the international. If i'm getting it actual i'll throw a shoe to my actual, it circles in the air like a boomerang and returns from my left. really pleasing. you ought to attempt it some time. once you ought to climb "up" ie in the route of the centre of the station then the gravity reduces. So any such station is built as a doughnut preserving all the operating aspects on the consistent distance r from the centre. because of the relative friction each thing ought to quickly flow with an similar tangential speed because the station. initially the air will lag in the back of as you boost up the station. yet friction between it and the partitions will quickly hose down out the relative action. the ambience is almost actually afflicted by the forces yet nowhere close to sufficient to strengthen it to our stress. we've gravity appearing on a column of air many kilometres extreme to grant our stress. on the station there is in straightforward words a radius of perchance 100 metres or so. no longer sufficient to grant significant air stress from this source on my own. even if the forces on any piece of air ( eg a balloon) are nevertheless resembling those on an similar balloon on a planet with an similar fee of g. the key to the station is to make it sufficiently massive so as that the speed of spinning ( w ) is low and does no longer produce significant disorienting effects for common activities.

It you started on the (inside of) the rim, and were moving with it, you would feel a force pushing you to the rim. Haven't you ever ridden a playground merry-go-round? Maybe not. You rarely see them today. Probably due to safety concerns. But if you were at the edge and spun it really fast there was quite a force pushing outward.

You don't have a point, except your display of your own ignorance. Yes, a Centrifugal Space Station IS VERY scientifically possible.

Here's why:

http://cseligman.com/text/physics/fictitious.htm

it might work, but it's highly unlikely