Saturday, January 4, 2020

Inner-planet trucker cabin

As for radius of any given arti-grav vessel: if space is at a premium, and passenger comfort is not, the hab[itat] can move at higher revolutions per minute. The 1970s called to warn us that the Coriolis Effect was a thing. We've lately been assured that humans can overcome this: Hop David's blog, and Al Globus' pdf.

I must point out that most orbital Earth and Venus stations, and for that matter most transports taking dozens or even hundreds of human passengers between those two planets, don't count space as a premium. Au contraire: they want the passengers to stretch out.

Within a planet's orbital well, mere passengers flying coach will be told to suck it up and to endure the micro-G, for the hours or couple days it takes.

Those who benefit from a high-spin, low-space hab: Venerean (and Earth) orbital ferrymen, from one orbital tier to the next; and truckers, in one or th'other orbit, and between those two planets. This would include transfers between Earth and its Moon. Eventually the pilot's shift will end and she'll want to stand on 8.6 or 9.8 g again. (Why "she/her"? Because less mass.)

Theodore W. Hall's spincalc for 6 rpm and 8.666 g tells that the hab will be 22 m radius - 138 m circumference. Boosting rpm above that, as Globus points out, doesn't buy the trucker's boss much less space. But 1400 square meters of living space with a 5 m ceiling is certainly good enough for a 1.9 m Venerean-born shuttle pilot and her co'. Longer haul trucking may require more.

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