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Hello,
I was recently reading one of my favorite novels, Neuromancer. In it, Gibson describes the L-5 colony of Freeside. Freeside was basically a spindle station with rotational gravity and something called a Lado-Acheson system. This system took sunlight collected from the outside and used it to generate images of recorded sky patterns from Earth.
This system was used to provide a simulated sky for the station, all along it's axis. My questions are: 1) What size does a station have to be to provide 1 g by rotation and 2) Is such a video system possible?
Cordially,
EarthWolf
" Man will not always stay on the Earth. "
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
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For the first, principally it is possible to create an outward acceleration of 1g at any diameter (the equation is g=radius*4*pi^2/rotational_period^2), but it is impractical for small sizes because of the coriolis force. So it should be at least a few 100 meters in diameter to do fine at 1g.
I guess it is possible to project a simulated sky with the same beamers which are used in planetariums.
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Well here is a good site to show you how we simulate gravity on an artificial satelite
http://www.regentsprep.org/Regents/phys … Artificial gravity
Centripetal force is very effective but we have also found that the amount of rotations per minute is important too so that crew aboard do not suffer from dizzieness. It seems that a rotation of 2 rpm seems the best for the crew.
To create a feeling of sunlight and of being on a planet aboard a spacestation involves some suttle adaptions of various laws and of course the use of mirrors. And an O'Neil cylinder (like babylon 5) of sufficient size will have clouds in the center of the cylinder, naturally.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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