A rotating wheel space station, is a concept for a hypothetical wheel-shaped space station which rotates, to produce artificial gravity. It was originally proposed by Herman Potočnik in 1929, which was adapted by Wernher von Braun in 1952 (the von Braun wheel), and subsequently popularized. Eventually the seminal film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) featured a now iconic rotating wheel space station (Space Station V). From 1960-1962 NASA developed a 24-foot prototype of a wheel station, the Erectable Torus Manned Space Laboratory, that was cancelled. No recent development of such a space station has been realized or demonstrated, as proposed with the Nautilus-X International Space Station centrifuge demonstrator.
Specifications
This type of station rotates about its axis, creating an environment of artificial gravity. Occupants of the station would experience centrifugal acceleration, according to the following equation:
a = − ω 2 r {\displaystyle a=-\omega ^{2}r}
where ω {\displaystyle \omega } is the angular velocity of the station, r {\displaystyle r} is its radius, and a {\displaystyle a} is linear acceleration at any point along its perimeter. In theory, the station could be configured to simulate the gravitational acceleration of Earth (9.81 m/s2), allowing for human long stays in space without the drawbacks of microgravity.
History Science fiction writers have thought of space stations since 1869 (The Brick Moon), scientist since Konstantin Tsiolkovsky's space station concepts from 1883, and rotating spacecraft for artificial gravity since 1891 (Hermann Ganswindt).
Herman Potočnik produced the first detailed description of a spinning wheel station with a 30-meter diameter, in his Problem der Befahrung des Weltraums (The Problem of Space Travel). He even suggested it be placed in a geostationary orbit, and before photovoltaics were known designing the station with large concave mirrors to collect sunlight for producing electricity. In 1952, Wernher von Braun and Willy Ley, writing in Colliers Magazine, updated the idea, in part as a way to stage spacecraft headed for Mars. They envisioned a rotating wheel with a diameter of 76 meters (250 feet). The 3-deck wheel would revolve at 3 RPM to provide artificial one-third gravity. It was envisaged as having a crew of 80. In the Soviet Union Tsiolkovsky drew in 1933 a rotating green house and described a rotating toroidal ring space station. The green house was depicted as a cylindrical station by Boris Valeryanovich Lyapunov in 1950. A wheel shaped station was illustrated in 1951 (drawn by Nikolai Kolchitsky, and in 1952 published in Journey into Tomorrow by Vasily Zakharchenko), which later was related to Tsiolkovsky's concept. In 1959, a NASA committee opined that such a space station was the next logical step after the Mercury program. In 1960 they began development on the Erectable Torus Manned Space Laboratory, building two prototypes before the project was cancelled due to fear of a puncture or the station tumbling out of control. It would have launched on a Mercury-Atlas 3 and inflate to 24 feet in diameter. The Stanford torus, proposed by NASA in 1975, is an enormous version of the same concept that could harbor an entire city.
In the 2010s, NASA explored plans for a Nautilus X centrifuge demonstration project. If flown, this would have added a centrifuge sleep quarters module to the ISS. This would have allowed experimentation with artificial gravity without destroying the usefulness of the ISS for zero g experiments, and would have been the first in-space demonstration of sufficient scale for artificial partial-g effects. The project did not advance beyond initial drawings and proposal.
Current considerations NASA has not attempted to build a rotating wheel space station, for several reasons. First, such a station would be difficult to construct, given the limited lifting capability available to the United States and other spacefaring nations. Assembling such a station and pressurizing it would present formidable obstacles, which, although not beyond NASA's technical capability, would be beyond available budgets. Second, NASA considers the present space station, the International Space Station (ISS), to be valuable as a zero gravity laboratory, and its current microgravity environment was a conscious choice.
Gallery
In fiction
Many fictional space stations and spacecraft use a rotating design.
Rotating wheel stations 1936: In Alexander Belyaev's novel KETs Star, a circular space station provides pseudo-gravity of about 0.1 g by its rotation. 1958: The film Queen of Outer Space features a rotating space station that gets blown up.
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