Doug: Spin State

To establish artificial gravity on a space station one really has only one option.

Spin the station. Centrifugal force forces objects inside the station to the edges. Spin the station fast enough, the force sucks you to the outer edge of the station at something approaching normal gravity. All this depends on if you got your math right. If you didn’t, it’s probably not a big deal, you might get a little bit more or less gravity, but nothing too noticeable. If you really screwed the pooch, you’ll end up squished on the outer edge of your creation, blood pounding in your skull and the feeling of an elephant sitting on your chest until you die of asphyxiation or the station shakes itself apart around you.

But I don’t really care about the gravity. The gravity is just a consequence of the spin.

I care about the spin.

And this is where you really have to get your math right.

Spinning a top on any planet eventually results in the top falling down. There are too many variables, friction, gravity, surface consistency; everything possible robs your top of its momentum causing it to topple.

But in space, there is nothing. No gravity, no air, nothing. If Ken Griffey Junior grand slams a fastball in space it will theoretically go on forever and ever, taking a slow tour of the universe, never accelerating or decelerating, just going on forever.

Space stations are like that if you got the math right. They spin and they spin and keep gravity nice and normal and everyone can keep going around and around in their little hamster wheel.

Unless you forgot to balance out the station’s spin so that it’s even at all points of the circle.

Then you’re fucked.

The station will accelerate around what it decides its center of gravity is going to be, putting stress on supports, braces and everything holding it together.

Eventually the stress will add up, metal will fail, bolts will part. Centrifugal force rips pieces of the station off and casts them out into the black abyss of deep space like the Babe smacking one clean over The Green Monster in Fenway Park.

Around and around it goes, out of control, pieces flying off as the station slowly fails. Eventually, the actual fuselage tears itself open, tearing into multiple pieces that charge into the black.

A few pieces of the station will remain in roughly the same area, some nuts and bolts. Nothing bigger than a table.

Reach for the stars kids. Just don’t screw up the math.

-Doug

“Entropy is a universal constant.”

-Augustus “Wolf Star