“Why can’t we design in a rotating ring?”
“Because think about the bearing. The entire circumference of the fuselage must be sealed—a seal which, by the way, must be both absolutely airtight and operational for years on end, at minimum.”
“The seal doesn’t have to be on the inside of the habitat.”
“Well, then you have to EVA every time you want to go anywhere else in the ship. No one’s really figured out a great material to resist vacuum welding either. If it happens anywhere and that bearing seizes up . . . well. Best case, you dump your precious, life-giving atmosphere into space and everyone dies. Worst case, any habitat worth having has enough momentum to wrench the ship in twain—so everyone dies, and the ship isn’t even worth salvaging afterward.”
Best case, you dump your precious, life-giving atmosphere into space and everyone dies.
“Well, why can’t we spin the whole ship?”
“That turns null-g into micro-g, complicates docking and navigation, and confuses the hell out of your pets. And you still need to get that spin in the first place—what a horrid waste of mass. We only bother for stations, because we only need to do it once.”
“What a delightful mélange of engineering and physics.”
“Yeah. Mag-boots are clumsy, but at least they won’t kill everyone.”
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