Saturday, January 4, 2020

The central meet-point

Any given orbit tends to host a main Station. More likely two: the one in use, which is getting crowded and smelly; and a larger newer one under construction. This is where all the embassies share space.

All the operational planet-facing stations have artificial gravity - in this one's case, gravitIES. The embassies live on ring habitats. Earth owns the outside ring - really, the outer floor on a two-story setup. Its rim is where visitors from Earth and also from Venus must dock. Venus, including its other orbiting colonies, reserves the floor immediately "above", hubward. The upper deck further has last-stage gravitational Physical Therapy, for outworlders en route to Earth.

From the top of the Earth/Venerean story, climbing intoward the hub, run thick passages each encircled within by a stairwell. A passage's bulkhead is studded with doors to airlocks and habitats - the latter, for Martians and others doing P.T., on their staged way down, who need to move on to Venus and/or Earth. The stairwells lead up to the Martian ring proper; inward and upward of that, the Lunar ring. Each ring also hosts P.T. for whoever has spent too long in 0g or asteroids or the Moon, wanting a move to weighter planets. The Martian ring further hosts the System's main conference rooms and voting rooms; a few hours at a time shouldn't hurt the Venereans and Earthmen.

SPLIT: the original was posted as part of "The Venus spaceport and embassy" one month ago. But it was steadily growing and losing focus. And this part of it may well apply to copies over Mars and Earth. Maybe not to L5.

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