Re: Interesting concultural ideas

Maarten wrote:
>Andrew Chaney wrote:
>
> > What about a rinh orbiting a sun, spinning at the speed as the earth
>with
> > people living on the OUTside of the ring rather than the inside?
> >
> > It could be engineered to have the proper radius & mass to have a
> > gravitational pull 1G (GMm/r^2, etc) and a rotational period of
> > around 24hr.
> >
> > It wouldn't have to rely on rotation to simulate gravity. It wouldn't
>need
> > to simulate day/night. It would be much easier on cartographers (no
> > projection distortions to worry about). And would seem to be a much
>easier
> > undertaking.
>
>Hey, I have a better idea: why don't we take a sphere, fill it up with mass
>to create the right gravity. Then we set it at a distance from the sun, so
>it receives the correct amount of irrdiation, and we spin it to create a
>day/night cycle. Then we let it orbit the sun at a speed that keeps it
>exactly in orbit. It is somewhat tougher to map than your ring, but a much
>more economical use of surface, since you could use all sides of the
>sphere.
>Ok, the top and bottom parts will be somewhat less inhabitable, because of
>the wrong irradiation angle, but we could tilt the revolution axis of this
>sphere to compensate for that. It sounds like an ideal shape actually.
>Anyone wish to comment?
Apart from the obvious that the useable area would fall to practically zero
compared to what the ring would give us? Not to mention that a guy called
God copyrighted the idea a while ago ... :-)

                                                    Andreas

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