Spinning Space Station

Dook · 2005-07-07 18:08:07

I remember I was happy when I first heard about the ISS project but when I saw what it was going to be I was very dissappointed. Why didn't they just build something more useful, a large wheel spinning to produce artificial gravity with a weightless spaceplane hangar at the center?

Now I wouldn't promote this over a human mission to mars but since we aren't planning on doing anything visionary in the next 30 years anyway I figure this is as good a project as any other.

What if we used to most efficient (cheapest with the best reliability and lift capacity we need) rocket we can find to lift the materials?

I'm sure ESA and Japan would chip in.

Rounded half inch thick Kevlar plates would make up the exterior. They could be bolted to thick fiberglass T beams, some could be launched already assembled. Layers of polyethylene could be placed on the inside of the kevlar panels to help protect against radiation and solar particles. Maybe invent some kind of spray foam polyethylene?

Cylindrical modules could make up the spokes of the wheel. They could be completed on the earth and just put in place in orbit.

One side of the wheel could be covered in solar panels, the side that faces the sun.

This space station should have a very efficient waste/water recycling system and an oxygen generation system that converts carbon dioxide to oxygen.

It should also have some kind of agricultural area to provide some food supplement.

It could have a space hotel for millionaire visitors to stay at.

Where is the best place to put it? LEO would be the most useful but it would need to be boosted to higher orbit every now and then. Maybe mount a few ion engines on it so it can slowly boost it's orbit when it needs to. Put them on the outside circumference and have them be moveable so you can use them to spin up the station, slow it down if necessary, then turn them and use them to boost the stations orbit.

The hangar could be a fly-through hangar, both ends open up. It should be large enough to completely fit a space shuttle inside. Also I think the hangar should somehow be stationary. I couldn't imagine trying to work on a spaceplane while the whole room spins around you. Maybe have the hangar be a completely separate cylinder at the center of the wheel? Have powerful magnets that keep the hangar cylinder in place at the center of the spinning station? Not sure how you would move back and forth between the two. Or you could just have the center section spin the opposite direction as the station, powered by electric motors. You would only need to use these when a spaceplane is docking and when maintenance is being performed but it would take a lot of energy.

dicktice · 2005-07-07 19:23:45

Re. Rotating space stations, if you watch "2001 A Space Odyssey" where the Panam spaceplane matches revs with the station hub, that's the way it would be. Forget all those complications to make the hub stationary, with the rest of the station rotating around it. Transferring oneself and/or supplies to the turning spokes introduces problems not worth thinking about.
Construction details aside, have you thought about the unchanging plane of rotation of such a space station as shown in the movie? Solar radiation is edge-on twice a year, and on-axis once a year from each end, complicating orientation of any solar radiation collection arrangement.
Consider polar Earth orbiting, at least, to avoid night and day. How about it?

Dook · 2005-07-07 19:46:35

I don't remember the space plane in 2001 but with the ship and hangar rotating it would be near impossible to work on. I think the maintenance crews would have constant vertigo and be overcome with nausea, not to mention the passengers as well. I still think having the hangar able to spin opposite the station at times would be more useful that way the crews would only have to fight weightlessness.

I think it would be best if the hangar cylinder had some kind of close tolerance magnets at the ends to keep the cylinder in place, also so there would be no friction losses. When moving in and out of the hangar you would have to match the speed of the two then connect an extendable pressure tube for people to pass through.

I didn't think about putting it in orbit over the pole. I guess that's where you would have to put it though.

GCNRevenger · 2005-07-07 21:38:04

The best way to build a hanger in a spinning station is not to put it in the hub.

Have the ship enter the hub and dock to a big elevator car, and lower the ship down one of the spokes to the hanger, where you can work on it with some gravity and not spinning around its axis.

Building such a space station would require Shuttle-III level reuseable launch vehicles. A small version made from TransHab modules bolted together with no "hanger" could be done with a Shuttle-II/DC-X class RLV.

Commodore · 2005-07-07 21:40:54

Sounds like the http://www.spaceislandgroup.com/home.html]Space Island Groups plans.

The use of ET tanks, be they from the Shuttle, or SDV, arr probably the best way to go about it. The pros and cons have been well hashed out over the years, and solutions have at least been suggested.

But theres no doubt that long term variable gravity reasearch needs to be done, and not just on humans. The key to producing self sufficent ecosystems away from Earth is getting critters to adapt new environments. That means 1g, 1/3g and 1/6g at least, all at once. A forth option would be useful as well.

As for the engineering, I'm not sure that fancy magnets are needed, unless your referring to wheels moved via electric motors.

Something this big should probably powered with reactors. Otherwise the size of solar panels, along with the massive weight of the station itself, it will be extremely difficult to shift the station to avoid space junk. The ion engines will probably need to be running almost constantly.

A shuttle bay would require a lot of cutting and welding, and the infrastructure needed to hold the pieces in place would be extensive.

Dook · 2005-07-07 22:46:40

GCN: The spinning station I had in mind was quite large but the one you want is gigantic. I like the idea of having the spaceplane in a gravity environment to work on but there are some problems with that. It would require a really huge station and the weight of the orbiter (230,000 lbs) and hangar would cause the station to wobble as they were moved outward from the center.

Why would we need reusable or shuttle lll to do it?

Thin kevlar panels with thick fiberglass T beams, fiberglass floorboards and walls wouldn't be too heavy at all and at 63,000 lbs one shuttle flight could take a lot of that into space or it could all be launched on normal rockets and just use the shuttle to catch it and take it to the ISS for assembly. We might need some kind of temporary (large inflatable?) hangar attached to the ISS to assemble each section then use the space shuttle to move the sections out and attach them.

Commodore: I wanted the magnets to keep the central shuttle hangar (large + magnets) separate from the spinning station (large - magnets) so there would be no friction loss when one is spinning and the other is stationary. No bearings needed then. You could have a pressure seal between the two but there would be friction loss and the seal would just leak and need replacing every so often. I would just have them be completely separate pieces.

The shuttle ET tanks don't provide ballistic protection from meteor showers and they just aren't big enough for me. At a minimum I would want the spinning stations interior to be about 40 feet wide so you could have a 6' wide walk/run space in the center with 17' living/laboratory/equipment/storage spaces on either side.

If you put the station into a high earth orbit you wouldn't need to run the ion engines as much and you should avoid much of the debris.

SpaceNut · 2005-07-08 05:20:54

I picture the station sort of like a very large yoyo shape. With a magnetically coupled central shaft which would allow for a non moving docking bay or space port on one half while the other half continued to rotate. Once the ship entered the hanger getting to its parked location, then the magnets would slowly reenergize intermitently coupling the shaft sections in between the halves until the stationary half had picked up sufficient speed to allow for continous operation mode. Each half could also be equiped with Ion engines to aid in spin up or down in speed of rotation as need be for station position corrections.

Grypd · 2005-07-08 05:25:36

There is always the possibility that Bigelows inflatable modules could be strung together in the Wheel section to crete your series of rooms. Being inflatable hopefully you could reduce the flights you need of the heavy lifter to provide the building blocks.

And as stated one of the hardest bits will be to have the central "column" not spinning and so to ensure a bit more safety and to avoid collisions there is nothing to stop the "column" being just that with a docking port far below.

This would also allow the creation of bands and sails of solar cells to provide power and if located at the "top" would increase there safety, being fragile things.

Still a worthwhile project and I suppose an absolute necessity one day when major space based construction will be necassary or in the case of some form of space manufacturing.

SpaceNut · 2005-07-08 05:48:49

I agree, that it is time to make use of the ISS for more than just pure science and to start using it as a platform for construction science as well

Palomar · 2005-07-08 06:34:52

*Von Braun Wheel?

I read an article recently that NASA was considering the idea (in the early 1960s?; not sure exactly when -- late 1950s or what -- von Braun put forth the proposal), but then of course came the proposed Apollo missions. Goodbye VBW.

--Cindy

Martin_Tristar · 2005-07-08 07:55:43

First I like Dook's idea about a spinning space station, but this rotating space station is there for personnel needs and not scientific. With an artifiical gravity based environment the humans could stay in orbit for months or years for terms of duty. Secondly, People could live aboard and travel to low / zero gravity platforms for scientific research or engineering.

Accommodation Space, Governmental Space and Business Space would be required for the various organizations that would work in space on a permanent basis. So you need to develop the structure for human habitation only.

Dook · 2005-07-08 08:15:32

Anything we do in space should be 100% about science.

Personnell needs? Okay, but personnel who conduct zero gravity experiments, perform maintenance on the station and spaceplanes, and operate the tourist hotel.

The purpose is to have a more useful platform in space to assist our human exploration efforts beyond. It's NOT going to be like an airport where large masses of people get on to flights to mars or titan, or worse, some God forsaken asteroid.

-It could be an emergency spaceplane repair facility.
-It can be a satellite repair facility. How long would we be able to keep Hubble, or one like it, operational then?
-It could be receiving depot for lunar PGM's.
-It could conduct zero gravity science in the labs at the inner hub.
-It could supplement NASA by acting as a millionaires tourist destination.

Martin_Tristar · 2005-07-08 18:08:37

Dook

The first use for a rotating space station would be for crew rotation for ISS and other space platforms that other governments and private enterprises could build and deploy.

All maintenance and construction should be done in low to zero gravity because of the added advantages for lifting objects including large components for these vessels. Additional facilities should be deployed around the rotating station providing the industrial sector in orbit thus creating a space town in orbit. With leasing space to other space enterprises and governments the offset costs for the space station and running costs are recouped over a number of years and reducing overall costs to the space community.

Example of Costs

Build cost $ 5000 Million for station, Running costs at $200 Million per year for 200 people ( leased spaces ) + 20% profit margin = $360 Million then over twenty years the cost per person per year would be Build Cost $2 million add the Running costs $ 2 million = total of $ 4 Million per person per year to make profits for space station.

There the Build value returned : $2 Million x 200 x 20 years = $ 8000 Million and Running Costs value per year = $ 2 million x 200 = $ 400 Million. These costs any scientific business could afford it, and also leasing transfer vehicles and other facilities could add value the space station even more. Even if the costs where as high as $ 40 Million per year per person the business community would work with these costs compared with missions of 7 days costing $40 million per person.

Also crew rotation can be more effective from the rotating space station for two or three year missions and thus reducing the need for more and more launches, reducing the risks to crews on the orbiting platforms. Additionally we could develop new technologies in space that could advance our society.

RobS · 2005-07-09 01:38:05

I wouldn't try to build a rotating station out of plates and girders, whether of kevlar and fiberglass or anything else. That requires spacesuited construction workers to bolt together a zillion things in zero gravity, which is complicated and slow (and therefore expensive).

It probably would make more sense to launch an inflatable station, or at least an inflatable outer shell and build inside the shell in a shirtsleeve environment. Such a facility probably would not resemble the spoked wheel of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It would be easier to design something shaped like a thick pizza or a flying saucer that would have high gravity along its spinning outer rim and less and less gravity toward the zero-gee center. The variety of gravity environments could be used in different ways. A spinning disk 30 meters in diameter would have martian gravity at its outer edge if spinning 4 rpm, which is probably doable for people. If it were ten meters thick it would have an interior volume of 7,000 cubic meters, which is enough for 70 people (at an average of 50 square meters of floor space and 100 cubic meters of volume each).

A more sophisticated version of this disk station would have an outer nonrotating hull and an inner rotating hull joined at the hub but otherwise separated by half a meter or a meter of dead space. Such a station could be walked on outside if necessary. Solar panels and antenna dishes would be attached to the outer, nonrotating hull. Zero-gee facilities and docking ports could sprout from it as well. But the joining mechanism at the hub would be quite complicated and possibly subject to serious breakdowns.

If we had to move large numbers of people across the solar system I'd put them in disk-shaped vehicles with a rotating inside, and attach the engines and fuel tanks to the non-rotating hub. You'd probably have to stop the spin for engine firings and aerobraking manuevers (where the large flat side of the disk would become a bottom for a heat shield).

-- RobS

Fledi · 2005-07-09 11:40:48

It's way better to connect two separate pieces with a long stucture with a pressurized tunnel or lift cabin between the two ends. If you are only interested in creating an artificial gravity environment a few hundred meters should be enough to avoid the problem of coriolis forces that are a characteristic of small diameter spinning stations.
This configuration would allow for way smaller stations to have the same gravity at the ends than a very huge wheel.
A 0g hangar could still be placed to the center, but as GCN already pointed out, the easiest way is to transport anything you want to work on to one of the ends by connecting to an electrical wagon.

But we should really think about if creating just another space station without that long deorbit/catching tether is worth the cost, since it would not really bring launch cost down, while the one I described earlier has the potential to work with spaceplanes that are maybe 5 times as hard to do as SS1, not 100 times like a full orbit vehicle thereby cutting current to orbit costs by magnitudes.

About solar cells, they seem to be able to generate more electrical power per weight than nuclear reactors, so they are preferable if all you want is electricity.
Drag losses are only an issue if they are in a really low orbit and space debris is the same as for any other solar cell powered satellites up in orbit, it is more likely to hit a particular cell but comes down to the same minuscule power loss down the line since the system is decentralized.

Also if you thinking about how to connect the cells to a rotating space station, extend a long structure orthogonally to the plane of rotation out through the center of rotation and connect your solar cells (also on frames that can be turned so they face the sun) to the ends of this structure.

dicktice · 2005-07-09 13:16:13

I wish to retract a silly objection I made regarding solar cell orientation. Sticking with the notion of a polar orbiting, spinning space station, I would like to consider orienting its spin-axis normal to the plane of Earth's orbit about the Sun. In order not to obstruct either end of the docking hub, as well as avoiding the complications of de-spun, sun-seeking, support structures for the solar-cell arrays ... simply cover the spinning outer perimeter of the station with solar cells, like the tread on an automobile tire. What would be wrong, in principle, with that?

Fledi · 2005-07-09 14:37:27

Nothing if you don't need more power than can be provided by that surface. This technique has been used often on satellites in the past, especially the spin stabilized ones.

dicktice · 2005-07-09 20:07:46

Good, since that shouldn't be the only source of electricity (another topic). I endorse reserving the hub area for docking(s) by spun-up spacecraft, as in the film "2001."

el scorcho · 2005-07-09 22:50:14

If the only way to get a space station is the clunky, expensive, slow, complicated, dangerous, all-consuming nature of the ISS or Mir, I'd rather spend the money and effort on something else. After all, no matter what political label, bell or whistle you slap on it, it's always a space station; by its very definition stationary.

However, if we can maintain a rotating space station along with a manned Lunar/Mars exploration program, why not?

I think NASA was onto something with the one-launch shot of Skylab. Modify the Shuttle's main tank so that it is more of a cylinder than a cone shape, perhaps utilize composites in the construction to lower weight (and therefore cost) of the station, and mass produce the whole package. Launch the first one with crew; they can spin the thing end-over-end with thrusters just to feel out the artificial gravity until more cylinders arrive. The whole ring could be assembled with six of these modules.

As for the spokes, why not modify the SRBs in a similar fashion? They're more than large enough for people and cargo to pass from point to point, and the whole station could be assembled with stuff we already have laying around. Also, just using the Shuttle stack, all the spokes could probably be launched in one go. A total of seven launches and there's a fully operational, spacious, artificial-gravity space station.

Grypd · 2005-07-10 03:42:34

Heres some thoughts about a spinning station.

1) One of the biggest problems for all items in space is heat and the energy of the sun. While a station like the ISS will have the side facing the sun heated up by many hundreds of degrees the side in shade is very cold. This puts a lot of stress onto the shape and also a lot of wear. A spinning station would revolve itself in to the heat and be warmed but when it rotated away the material of its hull would not cool that fast. A spinning station then would recieve a lot less stress from the changes in heat. It would still go into the shade provided by the Earth at times but still its wear and tear would be less, in this regard.

2) A spinning station would be very visible from Earth and if there is a thing that should inspire people to support working in space the effect of seeing a comfortable visible outpost of humanity with your own eyes will be it.

Martin_Tristar · 2005-07-10 07:27:29

A rotating Space Station will provide new opportunities for business to expand into space. The people onboard the space stations, construction of the station, movement to the space station and from it, and cargo movement into space and returning from space.

It will be the first steps for permanent human habitation of space in earth space and beyond. The creation of this space station would also allow more people to stay in orbit for extended periods reduce budget costs for personnel in space.

Next, the site of a permanent human settlement in orbit will provide focus for society to strive towards human expansion into space in a more permanent basis. The International Space Station (ISS) could be serviced from the rotating space station and could increase the frequency of use and valued return from the space platform.

Fledi · 2005-07-10 09:20:15

The International Space Station (ISS) could be serviced from the rotating space station and could increase the frequency of use and valued return from the space platform.

That would require the rotating space station to be placed to a similar inclination as the ISS.
It would make more sense to place it as close to the equator as possible and additionally keep in mind possible future maglev construction sites when you're positioning it.

Martian Republic · 2005-07-10 11:42:43

Let don't forget how we got the current ISS in orbit and that it was suppose to be a whole lot bigger than it currently is or that it currently suppose to be when we finish it. They kept downsizing it because of the cost to build it and the resources it would take to finish it. They finally settle on six full time people, a small wheel inside one of the habitats and a return shuttle with assorted laboratories and solar panels. Now this cost over 100 billion dollars to so this and I admit that it was poorly designed and it probably over priced by 50% to 75% of cost over runs and poor decision they made. But, if your going to build something that ten times bigger that can support sixty to seventy people vs 6 people in a space station is not going to be less than a 100 billion dollars and would probably be a whole lot more than 100 billion dollars. Someone mentioned the Space Island Group space station. OK, let look at it, it going to take 20 to 30 tanks of the space shuttle which may make only another 15 launches if that many. But, let go with that 20 tanks just for the sake of the argument at 500 Million dollars or more a launch or 10 billion dollars worth of launches that will decrease the amount of payload that you can take into space by about 20% if we take those tanks into space. We would have about 1 billions dollars worth of tanks in space at about 50 million dollars per tank. Now this does not exclude any retrofitting of those tanks to assemble them into a space station, life support system or solar panels etc. Now those tanks were not designed for being use like that and we would have to use those tanks as a building frame to layer of material on top of those tanks to even close to being able to use them in that fashion and to provide radiation shielding to protect those humans inside. So that tank idea is out. I have also proposed the idea of putting out a carbon fibber balloon type space station that could hold hundreds of people, but we come back to financing it and putting it out there. Although it light weight, it still has weight and being so big is will have a lot of weight and as such will take a lot of launches too to put it out there.

Although putting a large space wheel out there is a good idea, it is currently beyond our capability with out breaking the bank to put it out there. Unfortunately for the time being, the most we can expect is tipping something end over end or possibly putting two Bigelow on ends of a long rode and rotate it. We also might send up tank to be attached to the current space station with two small spinning rooms in it to deal with the micro-gravity problem. But I don't see anything being done in the short term because of the launch cost and the resources you would have to put up to make a sufficiently large enough space station to make it happen the way that we would like it to happen. The idea of putting up a major space of the spinning wheel type we need to put on the back burner and basically bypass that idea for the time being. Whether we like it or not, the current ISS and/or a Bigelow space station is our current best choice as far a space station in orbit.

Our current best choice for building a large wheel is either going to the moon and setting up base and manufacturing industries and/or mine the asteroids for the resources to build that wheel station. The resource to build a wheel space station big enough for our purposes will take a lot of resources and that the only place I know we can get those resources without having to deal with the gravity well of Earth. Other than that, it probably won't be practical to build a big wheel space station.

Larry,

Commodore · 2005-07-10 21:13:47

Since were using an inline SDV, we can load all the equipment needed to outfit the tank in the cargo portion. After second stage separation the tank uses the leftover fuel to achieve the best orbit it can. The cargo portion then rendezvous with the tank, and meets with a semi-permanently manned construction platform, which really doesn't need to be any more complicated than a TransHAB with a SSME and a pair of CanadaArms.

Depending on how long it takes to complete a tank, I'd guess we could finish 4 per year, give or take.

If you estimate a billion for your construction platform, a crew of three delivered via CEV for a 6 month stint (launched on an SRB, $75 million, guessamate $300M for the reusable CEV), 2-3 resupply CEVs($200m CEV and $75m for SRB) and a half billion per SDV launch, it's far more affordable than waiting for asteroid or lunar materials, especially considering that the tanks could play a critical role in getting such an operation up and running.

If you add that up...
Year One
Orbital Construction Platform (SSME + TransHAB + Robotic Arms ~ $1-2Billion
2 Crewed CEV Launches per year ~ $75M SRB Launcher* + 2 $300M Crewed CEVs +$10m CEV Recovery and Checkout= $760M
3 Resupply CEVs ~ $75M SRB Launcher + 2 $200M Resupply CEVs + $10M Recovery and Checkout = $620M
4 SDV Launches with all Cargo needed to outfit it ~ 4 * 1/2 to 1 Billion per launch = $2-4Billion
Total ~ $7.5 Billion
Year 2
2 Crewed CEV Launches per year ~ $75M SRB Launcher = $150M
3 Resupply CEVs ~ $75M SRB Launcher = $225M
4 SDV Launches with all Cargo needed to outfit it ~ 4 * 1/2 to 1 Billion per launch = $2-4Billion
Total ~ $4.5 Billion
*Conservative estimate, anyone know how much it really cost to recover and refuel an SRB?

Now that sounds like a lot. But in a lot less time and with a lot less money we could put the ISS to shame. In other missions we could put together the pieces to one good sized permanent Moon or Mars base in a couple years, and fantastic Mars ship with a couple of extra components. We are probably going to visit several lunar sites per year in the 2020-2025 range. If after a couple years of that we pause and pick a few sites to build permanent bases on, given a few years at this tempo we could finish them by 2035, have the infrastructure in place to immediately and seamlessly start building a Mars ship, and still have the money to keep the Lunar bases manned.

Martin_Tristar · 2005-07-10 22:53:05

In the Mid-1980's they started to develop the ISS Program but it was in the Late 1990's before any components went into space for the commencement of the ISS and it wasn't until early 2000's the first crews moved into the space station.

We need the rotating space station to improve the long term nature of humanity in space. We need to start the modelling and designing of the space station now, to have a complete construction schedule and project roadmap for the complete space station and associated facilities.

Fledi, you can transfer people and supplies via an orbit transfer vehicle from the rotating station to the ISS. Martian Republic, you can reduce the construction costs by using one-way cargo transporters from earth, then disassemble them into components for the space station, it comes down to design for the vehicles and space station.]

We shouldn't see a large rotating space station until 2015-2020 at the same time the opening of the first lunar base but it will add the movement of people into space for commercial, and / or scientific activities. When completed more platforms will be created to increase the activities in low earth orbit including the facilities for the mars exploration vessels.

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Re: Spinning Space Station

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