directions in a space colony?

On 12/12/14 5:24 PM, Al Globus alglobus@... [spacesettlers] wrote:

> Ive found this discussion rather Earth-centric. Were trying to use
> Earth concepts or sea-going concepts. Id prefer something more
> space-centric, for example:
>
> inward and outward to describe motion towards or away from the axis of
> rotation

I don't think you'll be able to stop people from calling these "up" and
"down."

> spinward and antispinward to describe motion in the direction of spin.
> Possibly shortened to spin and anti or SW and ASW

These, I could imagine being used in some circles.

But doesn't that essentially mean the same thing as "east" and "west"?

> North and South for movement normal to both of the above for settlements
> like Kalpana One
> (http://alglobus.net/NASAwork/papers/2007KalpanaOne.pdf) that are
> oriented such that the axis of rotation is normal to the ecliptic and
> thus really has a North and South direction relative to the solar system.

Yeah... I'm not sure the orientation relative to the plane of the
ecliptic is all that important, though. Directions on a planet or large
habitat are going to be defined relative to the spin axis of that planet
or habitat. If we're on Uranus (erm, in floating cities maybe?), I'm
certain "north" will be toward's the planet's north pole, even if this
happens to be pointing directly at the Sun.

Similarly, in a habitat, I think "north" will always be towards the
habitat's north pole (spin axis), regardless of which way that happens
to point.

This reminds me of attempts by some writers to call days on Mars "sols"
instead of "days." I understand the motivation, and it might catch on
in technical writing, but if we actually had people there, I'd bet
dollars to donuts that ordinary speech would use "days."

Best,
- Joe