Two Starships in "bolas" rotation

On Oct/3/2019 at 12:18, David Spain wrote :
On 2019-07-26 2:44 PM, Niklas Holsti wrote:
On 19-07-26 20:54 , David Spain wrote:

Or even
more simply, just put the spacecraft into a spin along the flight path
vector. Thus no 2nd ship required or fancy rendezvous and un-tether
maneuvers needed.

Spinning (rolling) around the long axis would give a rotational radius
of only 4.5 m, max, giving disorientating Coriolis and other effects.
The pseudogravity would be radial, 90 degrees offset from the real
longitudinal gravity when the ship stands on its rear fins. Not good,
IMO.

The centrifuge in Discovery was small in radius since it had to be
contained within the pressure sphere of the hull (12.2 meters). I wonder
if AC Clarke had done the math on that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_One

This would also allow incremental build-up of
spacecraft by joining future Starships together in LEO to make a larger
spacecraft.

I don't understand how the spin/roll is related to incremental joining
of Starships. In a Starship, one end "kicks" (the aft end) and the
other "penetrates" (the front end); they are not easily connected
together to form a larger living space. At most, one could dock two
Starships front-to-front. Can you clarify what you mean?


Yes you can dock front-to-front. If fact, what if you dock to a
habitation module like a large inflatable Bigelow module? Once in orbit
the nose of a Starship docks to an already inflated an constructed
habitation module where the diameter expands to 20-30 meters and the
circular 'decks' run parallel to each other along the inner
circumference. Now you have an artificial gravity environment where the
rate of roll is much, much less to achieve a given gravity and you get
this without needing a 2nd Starship and all the complexity of trying to
counterbalance two Starships. Of course two Starships could share this
hab module if docked at each end. The habitation module would remain in
orbit and not land but could be reused from either destination. Also if
the roll rate is small enough it might be possible to work within the
original Starship cabins under micro-gravity where the role of walls vs
floors are inverted during transit, but because the Starship cabins are
much closer to the axis of rotation there is very little gravity here.
None along the center line of the Starship.

I think 20-30 meters diameter is still small for centrifugal artificial
gravity. It might be enough if people were inactive, but with people
moving around you would probably get dizzy from the Coriolis effect.

Of course nobody knows. Nobody knows what g force would be necessary.
Nobody knows if one would adapt to the Coriolis effect. Nobody knows...
It's really a shame that no serious artificial gravity tests have been
done in orbit.


Alain Fournier