Re: Interesting concultural ideas

Andrew Cahney 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.
The tinest displacement of the sun from the center of the ring would make
the whole thing unstable. Living on the outside would be pretty dark, but
living on the inside wouldn't be any trouble except for the instability -
given powerful enough engines to correct it's position continuously it might
work.

Excalty what would rotate with a period of 24h? Certainly not the ring
itself - people would be thrown into space!

                                                 Andreas

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