Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony
The rotational axis of the station, whatever configuration you use, is going to be parallel to the orbital axis, so neither end will be sun-facing.
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Anyone good at mechanical physics calculations, especially for gravity-gradient stabilization and tidal locking?
I can figure out that for a station with a mass of 10e15 tons, and a length of 650 km, then a long cylinder of a station pointing at the sun would experience about 467 giganewtons of tidal force; and pretending it's a simple rod, it would have a moment of inertia around 3.19e29 m^2*kg. But I'm having trouble googling up any comprehensible equations to see if that would allow for the station to be tidally-locked to the sun.
Edit:
Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl
Passive lighting is an issue. The best way would be to have an array of shades that rotate slower than the habitat and the have the habitat perpendicular to the orbital plane (the Sun being always 'above' the habitat). With the rotating shades, you can block out the sunlight for an artificial night. If you want, you can have an array of rotating mirrors behind the habitat to give more light during the 'day'.
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I'm fine with 24-hour lighting, for this particular station. As soon as I figure out what direction it's pointing, I can decide whether to have one mirror, umbrella-style, or a large mirror at each end at 90degrees pointing to a smaller mirror at each end-cap.