[ExI] Space governance

[Ben Zaiboc]

On 27/09/2020 06:37, Adrian Tymes wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 25, 2020 at 11:38 AM Dave Sill via extropy-chat 
> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org 
> <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>> wrote:
>
>     On Fri, Sep 25, 2020 at 12:50 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat
>     <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>     <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>> wrote:
>
>         If these habitats are, say, cylinders 2 km wide, to allow them
>         to be spun up to 1 G, that's enough of a technical (and
>         imposed-by-human-biology) standard that people might not want
>         to mess with it.  2 km wide suggests maybe 5 km long maximum,
>         for structural stability.
>
>
>     What about rotational stability? Wouldn't want your habitats
>     flipping when they're full of people.
>
>     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VPfZ_XzisU
>
>
> Per that video, you weight it so the axis of rotation is not the one 
> that's going to cause that sort of flipping.

That would mean short, fat cylinders, not long thin ones, no?

It's interesting that we hadn't really understood this until relatively 
recently. Makes me wonder what other physics we are still completely in 
the dark about.

I'm also wondering if a long thin cylinder flipping about a 
perpendicular axis would be the disaster we are assuming (everything 
inside being thrown about). What forces would the people inside actually 
feel? Is it possible they wouldn't even notice unless they were looking 
out of the window? Maybe it would be a cool quirk of orbital habitats, 
and only be awkward for docking and astronomical observations, rather 
than disastrous.

-- 
Ben Zaiboc

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