
A rotating wheel space station, also known as a von Braun wheel, is a concept for a hypothetical wheel-shaped
space station
A space station (or orbital station) is a spacecraft which remains orbital spaceflight, in orbit and human spaceflight, hosts humans for extended periods of time. It therefore is an artificial satellite featuring space habitat (facility), habitat ...
. Originally proposed by
Herman Potočnik
Herman Potočnik (pseudonym Hermann Noordung; 22 December 1892 – 27 August 1929) was an Austro-Hungarian Army officer, electrical engineer and astronautics theorist. He is regarded as an early theorist of modern space flight and is remembered m ...
in 1929,
and popularized by
Wernher von Braun
Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun ( ; ; 23 March 191216 June 1977) was a German–American aerospace engineer and space architect. He was a member of the Nazi Party and '' Allgemeine SS'', the leading figure in the development of ...
in 1952.
Specifications
This type of station rotates about its axis, creating an environment of
artificial gravity. Occupants of the station would experience
centrifugal acceleration
Centrifugal force is a fictitious force in Newtonian mechanics (also called an "inertial" or "pseudo" force) that appears to act on all objects when viewed in a rotating frame of reference. It appears to be directed radially away from the axi ...
, according to the following equation:
:
where
is the
angular velocity
In physics, angular velocity (symbol or \vec, the lowercase Greek letter omega), also known as the angular frequency vector,(UP1) is a pseudovector representation of how the angular position or orientation of an object changes with time, i ...
of the station,
is its radius, and
is linear acceleration at any point along its perimeter.
[
In theory, the station could be configured to simulate the ]gravitational acceleration
In physics, gravitational acceleration is the acceleration of an object in free fall within a vacuum (and thus without experiencing drag (physics), drag). This is the steady gain in speed caused exclusively by gravitational attraction. All bodi ...
of Earth (9.81 m/s2), allowing for human long stays in space without the drawbacks of microgravity.
History
Both scientists and science fiction writers have thought about the concept of a rotating wheel space station since the beginning of the 20th century. Herman Potočnik
Herman Potočnik (pseudonym Hermann Noordung; 22 December 1892 – 27 August 1929) was an Austro-Hungarian Army officer, electrical engineer and astronautics theorist. He is regarded as an early theorist of modern space flight and is remembered m ...
introduced a spinning wheel station with a 30-meter diameter in his ''Problem der Befahrung des Weltraums'' (''The Problem of Space Travel''). He even suggested it be placed in a geostationary orbit
A geostationary orbit, also referred to as a geosynchronous equatorial orbit''Geostationary orbit'' and ''Geosynchronous (equatorial) orbit'' are used somewhat interchangeably in sources. (GEO), is a circular orbit, circular geosynchronous or ...
.
In the 1950s, Wernher von Braun
Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun ( ; ; 23 March 191216 June 1977) was a German–American aerospace engineer and space architect. He was a member of the Nazi Party and '' Allgemeine SS'', the leading figure in the development of ...
and Willy Ley
Willy Otto Oskar Ley (October 2, 1906 – June 24, 1969) was a German and American science writer and proponent of space exploration and cryptozoology. The crater Ley on the far side of the Moon is named in his honor.
Early life and Berlin y ...
, writing in '' Colliers Magazine'', updated the idea, in part as a way to stage spacecraft headed for Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...
. They envisioned a rotating wheel with a diameter of 76 meters (250 feet). The 3-deck wheel would revolve at 3 RPM to provide artificial one-third gravity. It was envisaged as having a crew of 80.[Ryan, Cornelius (editor; also associate editor of Collier's magazine—it is stated on the dust jacket flap that half of the contents of the book initially appeared in the Collier’s magazine series of articles " Man Will Conquer Space Soon!") ''Across the Space Frontier'' New York: September 1952, Viking Press. See Chapter 4 by Willy Ley--"A Station in Space" Pages 98-117; frontispiece of book has Chesley Bonestell illustration of entire wheel space station in orbit above Central America; pages 106 and 107 has cutaway illustration of interior of wheel space station; page 100 mentions that it is designed for a crew of 80. In the introduction on page xii, it is mentioned that the rotating wheel space station would orbit above ]Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...
, with an expected cost of US$4,000,000,000 in 1952 dollars (equivalent to $ billion in ).
In 1959, a NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...
committee opined that such a space station was the next logical step after the Mercury program
Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Un ...
. The Stanford torus
The Stanford torus is a proposed NASA design for a space settlement capable of housing 10,000 permanent residents. It is a type of rotating wheel space station, consisting of a ring with a diameter of about 1.8 km, its rotation providing about ...
, proposed by NASA in 1975, is an enormous version of the same concept that could harbor an entire city.
NASA has not attempted to build a rotating wheel space station, for several reasons. First, such a station would be difficult to construct, given the limited lifting capability available to the United States and other spacefaring nations. Assembling such a station and pressurizing it would present formidable obstacles, which, although not beyond NASA's technical capability, would be beyond available budgets. Second, NASA considers the present space station, the International Space Station
The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...
(ISS), to be valuable as a zero gravity
Weightlessness is the complete or near-complete absence of the sensation of weight, i.e., zero apparent weight. It is also termed zero g-force, or zero-g (named after the g-force) or, incorrectly, zero gravity.
Weight is a measurement of the fo ...
laboratory, and its current microgravity
Weightlessness is the complete or near-complete absence of the sensation of weight, i.e., zero apparent weight. It is also termed zero g-force, or zero-g (named after the g-force) or, incorrectly, zero gravity.
Weight is a measurement of the fo ...
environment was a conscious choice.
In the 2010s, NASA explored plans for a Nautilus X centrifuge demonstration project. If flown, this would add a centrifuge sleep quarters module to the ISS. This makes it possible to experiment with artificial gravity without destroying the usefulness of the ISS for zero g experiments. It could lead to deep space missions under full g in centrifuge sleeping quarters following the same approach.
Gallery
File:1986 CPA 5712.jpg, Tsiolkovsky's bublik
Bublik (also ''booblik'' or ''bublyk''; , plural: ; ) is a traditional Eastern European bread roll. It is a ring of yeast-leavened wheat dough, that has been boiled in water for a short time before baking.Savella Stechishin (1989). ''Tradition ...
-city on a stamp
File:Stanford torus external view by Don Davis AC76-0525.jpg, 1975 NASA concept of a Stanford torus
The Stanford torus is a proposed NASA design for a space settlement capable of housing 10,000 permanent residents. It is a type of rotating wheel space station, consisting of a ring with a diameter of about 1.8 km, its rotation providing about ...
File:Hegagonal inflatable space station deployment.jpg, 1962 NASA concept for deployment of a hexagonal inflatable rotating space station
File:Hegagonal inflatable space station 1962.jpg, 1962 NASA concept for a hexagonal inflatable rotating space station
File:Noordung space station.jpg, Description of a rotating wheel space station in Herman Potočnik
Herman Potočnik (pseudonym Hermann Noordung; 22 December 1892 – 27 August 1929) was an Austro-Hungarian Army officer, electrical engineer and astronautics theorist. He is regarded as an early theorist of modern space flight and is remembered m ...
's ''The Problem of Space Travel'' (1929)
Image:Rotatingwheelspacestation-mockup-nasa.jpg, A NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...
engineer takes a walk in simulated zero gravity around a mock-up of a full-scale, 7.3 m (24 ft) diameter space station in 1964.
File:Nautilus-X Global-view-1.png, Proposed Nautilus-X
File:Von Braun Space Station render.jpg, 2019 conceptual rendering of the proposed Voyager Space Station, in development by Orbital Assembly Corporation
Above: Space Development Corporation (formerly Orbital Assembly Corporation) is an American aerospace company that has announced several widely publicized plans to build various space stations. , no funding for the projects has been announced an ...
In fiction
Many fictional space stations and ships use a rotating design.
1936: In Alexander Belyaev's novel ''KETs Star'' a circular space station provides pseudo-gravity of about 0.1 g by its rotation.
1958: The film '' Queen of Outer Space'' features a rotating space station that gets blown up.
1968: Arthur C. Clarke's novel '' 2001: A Space Odyssey'' was developed concurrently with Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick (; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American filmmaker and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, Stanley Kubrick filmography, his films were nearly all adaptations of novels or sho ...
's film version of the same name. In it, the rotating space station Space Station V provides artificial gravity and features prominently on the book's first-edition cover. The Jupiter mission spacecraft, '' Discovery One'', features a centrifuge for the crew living quarters that provides artificial gravity.
1968: In the six part ''Doctor Who
''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson (writer and producer), Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterre ...
'' TV serial '' The Wheel in Space'', the titular station is the main setting of the story.
1970: The novel ''Ringworld
''Ringworld'' is a 1970 science fiction novel by Larry Niven, set in his Known Space universe and considered a classic of science fiction literature. ''Ringworld'' tells the story of Louis Wu and his companions on a mission to the Ringworld, an ...
'' describes a very large, habitable structure, centered on a star.
1984: The Peter Hyams-directed film ''2010
The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...
'' features a battleship-size, Russian built spacecraft (designed by futurist artist Syd Mead), the ''Leonov'', which has a continuously rotating central section, providing an artificial gravity for the occupants.
1985: The novel ''Ender's Game
''Ender's Game'' is a 1985 military science fiction novel by American author Orson Scott Card. Set at an unspecified date in Earth's future, the novel presents an imperiled humankind after two conflicts with an insectoid alien species they ...
'' features a multi-ringed station called "Battle School" with varying levels of simulated gravity. As the characters move through the station towards the center, there is a noticeable decline in the feeling of gravity.
1994: The humans in the science fiction series ''Babylon 5
''Babylon 5'' is an American space opera television series created by writer and producer J. Michael Straczynski, under the Babylonian Productions label, in association with Straczynski's Synthetic Worlds Ltd. and Warner Bros. Domestic Tel ...
'' live in an O'Neill cylinder station using rotating sections to provide artificial gravity. Earth Alliance space stations such as the Babylon series (hence the name of the series), transfer stations such as the one at Io near the main Sol system jump gate, and EarthForce Omega-Class destroyer spaceships made extensive use of rotating sections to lengthen deployment times and increase mission flexibility as the effects of zero gravity are no longer a concern.
1999: The main story of the Japanese manga
are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...
and anime
is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...
'' Planetes'' is set in "The Seven", the seventh wheel orbital station, and a ninth is under construction by 2075. In the Zenon trilogy ('' Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century'', '' Zenon: The Zequel'' and '' Zenon: Z3''), 13-year-old Zenon lives on a rotating space station owned by the fictional WyndComm from 2049 though 2054, but it is not designed in a way that would allow for artificial gravity through centripetal force.
2000: In the film '' Mission to Mars'', ''Mars II'', a NASA spacecraft hastily repurposed for a recovery mission of humanity's first mission to Mars in 2020, features a rotating crew habitat whose artificial gravitational rotation was shut down using the ship's attitude control thrusters to allow emergency repairs to the hull following a micrometeoroid
A micrometeoroid is a tiny meteoroid: a small particle of rock in space, usually weighing less than a gram. A micrometeorite is such a particle that survives passage through Earth's atmosphere and reaches Earth's surface.
The term "micrometeoro ...
shower.
2001: In the video-game series ''Halo
HALO, halo, halos or haloes may refer to:
Most common meanings
* Halo (optical phenomenon)
* Halo (religious iconography), a ring of light around the image of a head
* ''Halo'' (franchise), a sci-fi video game series (2001–2021)
Arts and en ...
'' created by Bungie
Bungie, Inc. is an American video game company based in Bellevue, Washington, and a subsidiary of Sony Interactive Entertainment. The company was established in May 1991 by Alex Seropian, who later brought in programmer Jason Jones (programme ...
, a planet-sized ring is depicted that can harbor Earth''-''like fauna and environments by simulating gravity through its spinning.
2003: In the re-imagined series ''Battlestar Galactica
''Battlestar Galactica'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Glen A. Larson. It began with the original television series in 1978, and was followed by a short-run sequel series, '' Galactica 1980'', a line of book adaptat ...
''. Ragnar Anchorage is a three ringed weapons storage station, and the civilian ship ''Zephyr'' is a luxury liner featuring a ringed midsection.
2007: The "Presidium" sector of the Citadel space station in the ''Mass Effect
''Mass Effect'' is a military science fiction media franchise created by Casey Hudson. The franchise depicts a distant future where humanity and several alien civilizations have colonized the galaxy using technology left behind by Elder race, a ...
'' series of video games comprises a rotating toroidal section connected to a docking ring, with five large "wards" radiating out from the central ring like a flower's petals. In addition, Arcturus Station, the human seat of government on the galactic stage (not shown in the games, but described in detail) is also mentioned as being a rotating Stanford torus
The Stanford torus is a proposed NASA design for a space settlement capable of housing 10,000 permanent residents. It is a type of rotating wheel space station, consisting of a ring with a diameter of about 1.8 km, its rotation providing about ...
.
2010: In the OVA '' Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn'', the official residence for the prime minister of the Earth Federation "Laplace" was an example of Stanford torus.
2011: Most space stations in the '' Expanse'' series make use of artificial gravity by rotation, most notably Tycho Station. Even larger celestial objects like Ceres and Eros
Eros (, ; ) is the Greek god of love and sex. The Romans referred to him as Cupid or Amor. In the earliest account, he is a primordial god, while in later accounts he is the child of Aphrodite.
He is usually presented as a handsome young ma ...
have been hollowed out and spun up to generate gravitational pull for their inhabitants.
2013: The Neill Blomkamp
Neill Blomkamp (; born 17 September 1979) is a South African and Canadian film director and screenwriter. He is known as the co-writer and director of the science fiction action film ''District 9'' (2009), for which he was nominated for the Aca ...
film ''Elysium
Elysium (), otherwise known as the Elysian Fields (, ''Ēlýsion pedíon''), Elysian Plains or Elysian Realm, is a conception of the afterlife that developed over time and was maintained by some Greek religious and philosophical sects and cult ...
'' has an enormous space station called Elysium (an open-roofed station in diameter) somewhere between a much-larger open-roofed Bishop Ring and a smaller, fully enclosed Stanford Torus
The Stanford torus is a proposed NASA design for a space settlement capable of housing 10,000 permanent residents. It is a type of rotating wheel space station, consisting of a ring with a diameter of about 1.8 km, its rotation providing about ...
.) The station in the movie supports a city and habitat for the privileged upper classes of Earth.
2014: A vessel very similar in design to the NASA-designed Nautilus-X was used in '' Interstellar''. The ship, known as the ''Endurance'', was used as a staging station also capable of interplanetary flight.
2014: Space stations in the video game '' Elite: Dangerous'' (and its prequels
A prequel is a literary, dramatic or cinematic work whose story precedes that of a previous work, by focusing on events that occur before the original narrative. A prequel is a work that forms part of a backstory to the preceding work.
The term ...
) rotate to create artificial gravity.
2015: Thunderbird 5 in the ITV TV show '' Thunderbirds Are Go'' features a rotating gravity ring section on the space station which features a glass floor to observe the Earth below. The series is set in the year 2060.
2015: The NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...
-designed ''Hermes'' in the film '' The Martian'' was capable of space travel to Mars.
2018: A planetarium
A planetarium (: planetariums or planetaria) is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation.
A dominant feature of most planetariums is ...
movie ''Mars 1001'' shows a fictional mission to Mars employing a rotating spacecraft. Fallout 76 includes a ruined space station that has a rotating wheel on it in a location called The Crater.
2019: The video game ''Outer Wilds
''Outer Wilds'' is a 2019 action-adventure game developed by Mobius Digital and published by Annapurna Interactive. The game follows the player character as they explore a planetary system stuck in a 22-minute time loop that resets after the ...
'' features multiple: the base game contains a rotating gravity wheel inside of a planet to maintain a gravitational pull within the planet's center. The 2021 DLC ''Echoes of the Eye'' features a planet-sized, wheel-shaped starship that rotates to create artificial gravity.
2022: The Mandalorian is shown on a rotating ring with artificial gravity in '' The Book of Boba Fett''.
2022: The season 3 premiere of '' For All Mankind'', an Apple TV+
Apple TV+ is an American subscription over-the-top streaming service owned by Apple. The service launched on November 1, 2019, and it offers a selection of original production film and television series called Apple Originals. The service w ...
original series, depicts a space hotel with a rotating wheel for gravity generation which becomes important to the storyline after the rotating mechanism malfunctions.
See also
*Space habitat
A space settlement (also called a space habitat, spacestead, space city or space colony) is a Human settlement, settlement in outer space, sustaining more extensively Space habitat (facility), habitation facilities in space than a general space ...
*Space colonization
Space colonization (or extraterrestrial colonization) is the human settlement, settlement or colonization of outer space and astronomical bodies. The concept in its broad sense has been applied to any permanent human presence in space, such ...
*Weightlessness
Weightlessness is the complete or near-complete absence of the sensation of weight, i.e., zero apparent weight. It is also termed zero g-force, or zero-g (named after the g-force) or, incorrectly, zero gravity.
Weight is a measurement of the fo ...
*Stanford torus
The Stanford torus is a proposed NASA design for a space settlement capable of housing 10,000 permanent residents. It is a type of rotating wheel space station, consisting of a ring with a diameter of about 1.8 km, its rotation providing about ...
, a design for a diameter space habitat capable of housing 10,000 to 140,000 permanent residents, proposed in 1975 by NASA.
*Bishop Ring (habitat)
__NOTOC__
A Bishop RingRain Noe"Space Colony Form Factors, Part 3: The Stanford Torus and Beyond" ''Core77'', August 7, 2015. Retrieved 28 May 2018. is a type of hypothetical rotating wheel space station originally proposed in 1997 by Forrest Bish ...
* O'Neill cylinder, a diameter space settlement design proposed in 1976 by Gerard K. O'Neill.
*Ringworld
''Ringworld'' is a 1970 science fiction novel by Larry Niven, set in his Known Space universe and considered a classic of science fiction literature. ''Ringworld'' tells the story of Louis Wu and his companions on a mission to the Ringworld, an ...
* Man Will Conquer Space Soon!, a famous series of 1950s magazine articles detailing Wernher von Braun's plans for crewed spaceflight.
*Mars Direct
Mars Direct is a proposal for a human mission to Mars which purports to be both cost-effective and possible with current technology. It was originally detailed in a research paper by Martin Marietta engineers Robert Zubrin and David Baker in 19 ...
, proposal for a human mission to Mars. It contains a design to generate artificial gravity by tethering a "Habitat Unit" to a rocket stage and rotating them about a common axis.
* Space stations and habitats in popular culture
References
{{space stations
Proposed space stations
Space station
A space station (or orbital station) is a spacecraft which remains orbital spaceflight, in orbit and human spaceflight, hosts humans for extended periods of time. It therefore is an artificial satellite featuring space habitat (facility), habitat ...