Stanford Torus vs Bernal Sphere

From: Anuj Madan [mailto:anujmadan_pec@....in]

> I would like to ask about the requiement of elevators in
> Stanford Torus. It is clear that elevators would be required
> in the Torus for transporting materials to and fro from the
> docking facilities. But I think this holds true for Bernal
> Sphere also as one would always require an elevator in it
> for the same purpose as docking facilities are once again in
> zero-g or micro-g region.
>
> In this aspect, i think Bernal sphere doesn't prove to be
> better than Stanford Torus... What do you say ?

I'm sure that routine traffic will use some kind of tram, or in some
simpler arrangement chair-lifts on cables. But O'Neill's point was that
if the power went out in a Bernal Sphere, you could start walking uphill
toward one of the two "poles" of the sphere. Towards the end of your
journey, you'd be more-or-less climbing straight up, but by that point
you would only weigh a few pounds, and so probably would be having no
problems continuing your ascent.

In a Stanford Torus, one might possibly have a spiral staircase or
ladder in the spokes adjacent to the elevator shafts. But that would be
a ladder half a mile long, and lord knows how much longer the spiral
staircase would be. People stopping from exhaustion would be creating
traffic jams (people ascending to the spin axis of a Bernal Sphere would
be coming in radially from all directions). Maybe if you were losing
weight with each step, it might not be as unmanageable as it would seem
from our Earthly perspective. But walking up a much shorter hill sure
sounds a lot easier.

Regards,

Mike Combs