Can the Moon be given an earthlike atmosphere?

Joe,

Thanks for the explanation. I take it then that the point we start to
get into instability problems is roughly when the thickness of the
disc is equal to the diameter. If we keep the thickness down to, say,
the same as the radius, we should be okay. We still have to keep the
mass loads balanced around the outside of the disc.

I am beginning to see where you are coming from with your torus
model. The path of two spheres rotating around a common center of
mass describes a torus. If I take my cylinder full of spheres, bend
it around and connect the ends, I get a hollow torus containing
spheres.

You may ask, "Why retain the spheres? Why not go with flat vertical
bulkheads?" That might be fine for a smaller space station of less
than 100 meters torus thickness, but for a colony larger than one
kilometer thickness we need curvature on the pressure bulkheads. A
sphere is the ultimate curvature.

There can be multiple decks within each spherical pressure vessel, and
and also in the spaces between them. A ring of smaller spheres may be
built in the gaps between the larger spheres.

We may not be on the same page, but I think I am now in the same
chapter.

> ... a wheel or torus is perfectly stable. ... Discs are fine too.
If you want an intuition for it, imagine that the
> greatest mass of the station "wants" to spin slowly around the
largest
> path it can. So in a cylinder, that'd be spinning end over end,
rather