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space stations size

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rgrove0172

SOC-12
Influenced by popular science fiction its easy to imagine these huge orbiting cities where a traveler can visit restaurants, go to conferences, get a hotel room etc. However, looking at the limited information on spacestations in the 2300U it seems such a thing is beyond them. Even the biggest habitats wouldnt support that kind of vision.

Do you guys fudge in the way of huge orbital, spinning facilities to enable the "Airport in Orbit" type thing or do you stick with the cramped, purely functional, slightly more accomodating than the ISS version?
 
I don't play this version(s), but wouldn't something like Station V from 2001 A Space Odyssey be in line (as opposed to space cities)? From what I know of the setting I would expect stations up to half an order of magnitude larger in well developed systems (i.e. occupancy supporting several thousand and internal berthing for maybe a half dozen or more typical sized vessels and plenty of external docking options).

Re:
http://derricklferguson.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/2001-21.png
http://www.starbase79.com/images/2001Space/2001SpaceStation.JPG
 
rgrove0172 said:
Influenced by popular science fiction its easy to imagine these huge orbiting cities where a traveler can visit restaurants, go to conferences, get a hotel room etc. However, looking at the limited information on spacestations in the 2300U it seems such a thing is beyond them. Even the biggest habitats wouldnt support that kind of vision.
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There was a study in the summer of 1976 by NASA/Ames that created the design known as the "Stanford Torus". A structure of that size allows for the amenities you describe.
There are no technical barriers to building it (even with 1976 tech), only political/economic realities and lack of launch capability. If/when enough space infrastructure is in place, the first one should take ~25 years to complete.

rgrove0172 said:
Do you guys fudge in the way of huge orbital, spinning facilities to enable the "Airport in Orbit" type thing or do you stick with the cramped, purely functional, slightly more accomodating than the ISS version?
Click to expand...
Core and colony systems have "Airports in orbit". Outpost systems will have more austere facilities.
 
shaunhilburn said:
There was a study in the summer of 1976 by NASA/Ames that created the design known as the "Stanford Torus". A structure of that size allows for the amenities you describe.
There are no technical barriers to building it (even with 1976 tech), only political/economic realities and lack of launch capability. If/when enough space infrastructure is in place, the first one should take ~25 years to complete.
Click to expand...
Just to build on another man's foundation, there was also a study done on leaving those large external tanks attached to the Shuttle and carrying them all the way to orbit ... large aluminum cylinders parked in orbit would have made for a handy source of space station modules or raw aluminum for orbital factories.

That could cover the launch capability aspect for building a Stanford Taurus ... with every launch, the station grows a little larger.
 
In Challenge 43 (pages 66-71), ESA's L-5 space station (city?) is described as 5 km long and 1.5 km actos (triangualr form), with 3 pylons and several rotating hábitats, with about 50000 people living on it.

That's quite large IMHO.
 
McPerth said:
In Challenge 43 (pages 66-71), ESA's L-5 space station (city?) is described as 5 km long and 1.5 km actos (triangualr form), with 3 pylons and several rotating hábitats, with about 50000 people living on it.

That's quite large IMHO.
Click to expand...

I agree. In the Earth / Cybertech sourcebook Gateway is said to house all the offices of OQC; its own offices and the representations of all sorts of governments and businesses. Also, numerous satelites share Gateways orbit they are complete factories; docking facilities and entertainment and hotel facilities.
The sourcebook goes on to say that the best way to think of Gateway is to think of it as a massive international city.

I think that says it all.
 
In the Mongoose 2300 AD rulebook, they mention a few orbital habitats that are as long as 8km and have quite a large diameter allowing for multiple levels where you could have restaurants and shopping malls with wide open spaces etc.
 
There are quite a few stations known in Earth orbit.

Diana Station at L-5 (ESA)
An American Station at L-4
A Japanese Station at L-4
An Argentine-Mexican Station at L-4
Gateway Station in GSO over Libreville (French)
"American Earth Orbital Shipyard" in GSO
"Wellington Orbit Station" in GSO (British)
"Leyland-Whitworth Orbital Engineering Centre" (British, probably part of Diana or Wellington Stations)

The "Orbital Clarke Habitat" that built Bayern is probably Diana Station.

There is probably nothing below Geostationary, as polar orbits will eventually intersect with the Beanstalk. Boom.
 
rgrove0172 said:
Do you guys fudge in the way of huge orbital, spinning facilities to enable the "Airport in Orbit" type thing or do you stick with the cramped, purely functional, slightly more accomodating than the ISS version?
Click to expand...

My preference is for orbital colonies and such. Not the huge million person ones but definitely thousands to a bit more. But that's my love for those kinds of things.

Mongoose 2300 has rules for building space habitats that I seem to recall envisioned larger spaces. I'll take a look at them and build something big for review.
 
I don't have the exact figures handy at the moment, but using a rotating station to create artificial gravity comes with a pretty large minimum diameter (like 200 to 1000 meters or so iirc) to prevent motion sickness.

So space stations may be pretty large just to comfortably accommodate normal people. The ISS poses serious health challenges for long-term habitation.
 
atpollard said:
I don't have the exact figures handy at the moment, but using a rotating station to create artificial gravity comes with a pretty large minimum diameter (like 200 to 1000 meters or so iirc) to prevent motion sickness.

So space stations may be pretty large just to comfortably accommodate normal people. The ISS poses serious health challenges for long-term habitation.
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MgT2300 deals with that, allowing a maximum of RPM for the station to avoid uncomfortability, while the simulated Gs achieved depend on the radius and the RPS of the ship/station.
 
McPerth said:
MgT2300 deals with that, allowing a maximum of RPM for the station to avoid uncomfortability, while the simulated Gs achieved depend on the radius and the RPS of the ship/station.
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I believe the rules are for starships but spacestations they state in another section have a much larger diameter and therefore can rotate much more slowly allowing for higher g's although there are no hard set rules for spacestations the way there is for starships
 
Carcosa said:
I believe the rules are for starships but spacestations they state in another section have a much larger diameter and therefore can rotate much more slowly allowing for higher g's although there are no hard set rules for spacestations the way there is for starships
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But they can be inferred from the starship rules. After all, a space station is no more than an immobile (driveless) starship, from the designer's POV...
 
McPerth said:
But they can be inferred from the starship rules. After all, a space station is no more than an immobile (driveless) starship, from the designer's POV...
Click to expand...

Not entirely true, tho' often GDW and DGP handled Traveller bases that way. And 2300 bases are going to be large hamster wheels or O'neill variants... spin gravity...

A ship is expected to handle gravity from one axis constantly, with transient loads to at least the same off axis due to maneuvering. A base need only have structural strengthening to handle the loads of its own spin-gravity... most of which is within the wheel itself.

A ship likewise must be oriented such that it fits within the effect of the stutterwarp drive unit(s). A base need not.

A ship also can bring itself about to bear weapons on all axes; a based is limited to one (due to gyroscopic stability). Same for sensor dishes.

A ship can also be somewhat more claustrophobic than a base, since crewing is likely to be shorter term aboard ship. Further, ships are likely to have more canned life support, and bases more plant-life based.
 
aramis said:
McPerth said:
But they can be inferred from the starship rules. After all, a space station is no more than an immobile (driveless) starship, from the designer's POV...
Click to expand...
Not entirely true, tho' often GDW and DGP handled Traveller bases that way.
Click to expand...

Ok, let me reword my phrase: (...) from the game design rules POV (...).

Better now?
 
The one I grew up seeing on tv, as a possible future item, was the Wiley Ley space station. It was mentioned as a precursor to the manned mars expedition ideas by Werner von Braun and Wiley Ley. A quick search doesn't find any of the ships they envisioned. These ships and space station made it to a Disney's Wonderful World of Color show back in the 1950s.

The Mars ships were basically flattened umbrella shapes with rooms, medical, command, etc. in that part. The handle extended far down and had a reactor for power. I forget the number, but multiple ships were goiing to make the journey. Small landing ships would land on Mars. They had designed space suits that were more like deep water researtch vessels, for moving between the space ships, and exploring the moon Deimos and Phobos.

The drawing for the space station is on the upper right of this Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_wheel_space_station

The other one I know of, already mentioned, is the O'Neal L-5 giant tube.

Whole Earth Catalog people had a big write up on the L-5 space station in the Whole Earth Quarterly magazine back around the 1970s.

The big propblem is the radiation from cosmic rays and the local star.
 
JimMarn said:
The big propblem is the radiation from cosmic rays and the local star.
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an o'neil variant is a better use of surface area than a wheel and hub - less armor needed for a given habitable surface.
 
McPerth said:
But they can be inferred from the starship rules. After all, a space station is no more than an immobile (driveless) starship, from the designer's POV...
Click to expand...

True, but with a MUCH Greater spin diameter, it would only have to spin at a fraction of the speed to create one G.
 
I have the Whole Earth Quarterly article somewhere for the L-5s. They showed giant glass windows... with squads of women in space suits cleaning them of dust from small micro-meteors.

By the time we get one up in a L-5 position, probably have glass that lets enough sunlight in, and be shielded.
 
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