David Spain wrote on Fri, 4 May 2018 09:39:09
-0400:

On 5/4/2018 6:14 AM, Fred J. McCall wrote:

You'll need some reaction wheels to control pointing and some engines
to unload the reaction wheels when they become saturated. Think about
the mass of the station when compared to the mass of a human being...


As an aside apropos of nothing, I remember reading an elaboration I
think it was by A.C. Clarke himself about how the centrifuge would have
worked on the Discovery in 2001 A Space Odyssey. It may have been from
the book "The Making of 2001: A Space Odyssey". In it he mentions a
reaction wheel used to contain the angular momemtum of the centrifuge
when it was spun down and to assist in its spin up. I suppose if mass is
no object, it could also be used to counter-rotate against the
centrifuge if it was massive enough. On the Discovery the centrifuge was
completely contained within the spherical pressure hull.


The problem, as you mentioned, is vibration unless the station is
truly massive and the centrifuge is incredibly well isolated. You
really need a trio of stations; a habitat that rotates so you're
living in gravity, a nearby free-flyer for microgravity experiments,
and a more distant free-flyer for optical work (so you're not getting
contamination from outgassing from the other pieces).

--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw