OrbHab Paper
Space Settlement Population Rotation Tolerance (2017)
ID: 348 Flag Paper
Title: Space Settlement Population Rotation Tolerance
Authors: A. Globus, T. Hall
Journal Name: NSS-Journal
Year of Publication: 2017
Page Number:
Category: biosphere
Availability: pdf
Detail Page: /papers/348
Web Link: https://space.nss.org/wp-content/uploads/NSS-JOURNAL-Space-Settlement-Population-Rotation-Tolerance.pdf
BoK Link: [[paper:348]]
Abstract
To avoid a number of very negative health effects due to micro-g, free-space settlements may be rotated to provide 1g of artificial gravity to settlers. Since the NASA/Stanford space settlement studies of the 1970s the settlement design community has assumed that rotation rates must be no more than 1-2 rpm to avoid motion sickness. To achieve 1g, this rotation rate implies a settlement radius of approximately 225-895 m, which is much larger than any existing satellite. In this paper we examine the literature and find good reason to believe that much higher rotation rates may be acceptable to residents and visitors alike, significantly reducing the minimum size of settlements and thus the difficulty of building them. Newcomers to a rotating settlement may well get sick, but they will quickly adapt. We find that rotation rates of up to 4 rpm, corresponding to a 56 m radius, should be acceptable, although visitors may either require some training or a few hours to a day or so of adaptation. A rotation rate of up to 6 rpm (25 m radius) should also be acceptable for residents but visitors will almost certainly need training and/or a few days to adapt. While higher rotation rates (even 10-30 rpm) may be acceptable with training, such small structures are not suitable for permanent residence (9 m radius at 10 rpm). With some caveats due to the quality of the available data, it appears that the lower limit of space settlement size is not determined by human response to rotation rate but rather by other factors. This means that the effort necessary to build the first space settlements may be significantly less than previously believed, simply because they can be much smaller than heretofore expected.
Title: Space Settlement Population Rotation Tolerance
Authors: A. Globus, T. Hall
Journal Name: NSS-Journal
Year of Publication: 2017
Page Number:
Category: biosphere
Availability: pdf
Detail Page: /papers/348
Web Link: https://space.nss.org/wp-content/uploads/NSS-JOURNAL-Space-Settlement-Population-Rotation-Tolerance.pdf
BoK Link: [[paper:348]]
Abstract
To avoid a number of very negative health effects due to micro-g, free-space settlements may be rotated to provide 1g of artificial gravity to settlers. Since the NASA/Stanford space settlement studies of the 1970s the settlement design community has assumed that rotation rates must be no more than 1-2 rpm to avoid motion sickness. To achieve 1g, this rotation rate implies a settlement radius of approximately 225-895 m, which is much larger than any existing satellite. In this paper we examine the literature and find good reason to believe that much higher rotation rates may be acceptable to residents and visitors alike, significantly reducing the minimum size of settlements and thus the difficulty of building them. Newcomers to a rotating settlement may well get sick, but they will quickly adapt. We find that rotation rates of up to 4 rpm, corresponding to a 56 m radius, should be acceptable, although visitors may either require some training or a few hours to a day or so of adaptation. A rotation rate of up to 6 rpm (25 m radius) should also be acceptable for residents but visitors will almost certainly need training and/or a few days to adapt. While higher rotation rates (even 10-30 rpm) may be acceptable with training, such small structures are not suitable for permanent residence (9 m radius at 10 rpm). With some caveats due to the quality of the available data, it appears that the lower limit of space settlement size is not determined by human response to rotation rate but rather by other factors. This means that the effort necessary to build the first space settlements may be significantly less than previously believed, simply because they can be much smaller than heretofore expected.