How to build this?

posted this a couple of days ago but doesn't seem to get there, so I
think I'll repost it, apologies if you get it twice...

I'm no engineer but I always thought the rotating torus design is
fundamentally flawed... ;)
The problem is not the "rotating" bit, is the torus. Why a whole torus?
The main issue I see is that in this design the entire circumference
that rotates is pressurised, and then the entire contraption needs to
spin very fast indeed to get any simulated gravity at all, being
necessarily of a small radius, while all you really want are the two
points, the center and the rotating end one, and the further apart
they are the better it is. What need there is to have a continuous
closed circumference? Why not just spin a very short section at the
end of a much longer radial arm, eventually with a second one as a
counterbalance at the other end, if needed?
Basically take your "wheel" design and multiply the radius by say a
factor of four or more, then saw off all but two very small sections
at the opposite ends of the wheel. What you are left with is a system
that spins much faster at the circumference end (where you want to
have the artificial gravity) but much slower at the hub, where you
have the bearings.
The rotating parts needs not be pressurized at all, making the
construction and maintenance that much simpler, as all you need is a
pressurized cab moving between the pressurized section at the hub and
the pressurized section at the far end(s) of the arm. The "arm" (or
arms) itself doesn't need to be pressurized and in fact it doesn't
need to be anything more than a cables or ribbons system, hold in
tension by the spinning itself. To make a concept example, rather than
a bicycle wheel you can have a "bolas" design.
Because you concentrate all the pressurized volume in two points only
instead of distributing along the entire circumference you can have a
much larger radius (easily ten times larger) for the same mass/cost.
Seems much more efficient? Maybe there is some technical reason why
this is not possible but then please explain it to me! :)

Cheers,

Claudio

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