Re: O'Neill habitat spin axis

From: Thomas Schoene (taschoene_at_earthlink.net)
Date: 08/26/04 

To: sci-space-tech@moderators.isc.org
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 02:27:55 GMT

Russell Wallace wrote:
> I'm designing an O'Neill habitat for use in a game scenario, where I'm
> trying to keep the science as plausible as possible. It's going to be
> the classic "spinning tin can" design, surrounded by an array of solar
> panels, mirrors and radiators (and directly in orbit around a star,
> rather than a planet, though I could change that if there was reason
> to do so). My question is about the spin axis.
>
> I'd ideally like to point it at the sun. Then the nearside cap could
> be coated in solar cells while the rest of the surface is painted
> black to help radiate heat.

O'Neil's Island Three design, as described in High Frontier, has this basic
orientation and configuration. He uses a solar boiler rather than
photovoltaic cells for power; radiant cooling is I think rather neglected in
the short version in the book.

As several people noted, the trick to keeping the station oriented sunward
is to couple a pair a pair of cylinders together and counter-rotate them.
That solves your conservation of momentum issues. Precision pointing can be
done by adjusting the relative rotation rate slightly. 

-- 
Tom Schoene                    Replace "invalid" with "net" to e-mail
"Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right, when
wrong to be put right."                    - Senator Carl Schurz, 1872