Maglev Station

[TheWillRogers]

Hello, My name is willis, and I am new to these forums, I am just about to finish up my second term of high school physics.

And I may or may not be posting this in the right forum, sorry if it's not.

Last term when we learned about centrifugal force, using it to create artificial gravity, I had an idea for a space station that would rotate to creat gravity, after some lookign into it I stumbled across the Stanford-Torres, which seemed novel to me, but used old tech. So my little mind went to work.

I had also just got done watching somehting on history about magnents, and the Maglev Trains. It occured to me that having a station controlled by magnents would be pretty cool. so i drafted up a design(The design is not with me, it's at home i'll scan it in later and post it.)

It's basically a track that has a diameter of 1km, with karts attached on the outside, propelled on a rail at the proper speed to reach a centrifugal force of 9.81m/s, i believe the math was either 1 or 2 RPM. the magnets would be electric, so using controlers you would be able to kill the power to them, allow a cart to stop, and add a new cart to the station, expanding for living space, a new lab, or maybe even a shuttle parking lot.

I know this was a shotty post at best, but I would like to know your guys' ideas on this.

 

[Shpaget]

Hello Willis, welcome to SDC!

I guess you mean Stanford torus (a circular tube spinning around with everything inside).

Your stations wouldn't be a torus, just a circular rail on which the "trains" would "hang" from "above" speeding in circles to achieve a comfortable artificial gravity? All the living and other usable space would be inside those trains, right?

Well, there is a problem with that. Those trains would imbalance entire structure unless you had the exact same mass on the opposite side. Those trains would also push the track in the opposite direction.
So it would be easier to just make two rings with fixed compartments that are connected in their centers and spin in opposite directions. That way you can also stop them at any time and spin them up (well, it would take plenty of time and energy).
I just don't see the benefit of having a stationary track, which isn't stationary, and living compartments zipping around.


Oh, if the diameter is 1km, than to produce 1G you would need to spin at one revolution in 45 seconds (1.34 rpm).

 

[Gravity_Ray]

I know old tech seems.. well old to most young people. But I dont see any advantage of a "train" space station to an actual Stanford Torus. Having the whole tube moving to generate gravity is a very good idea and you will actually have less living space if you spin a train to create gravity as well as other technical problems that Shpaget alluded to.

One novel idea that I read about once that is kind of like your idea was in the book Red Mars. They built a train track around one of the moons of Mars and as the train circled the moon it generated gravity for the people that were walking on the inside roof of the train. This created a bit of gravity for people on the moon so they would not get sick. Presumebly it was a magnetic train.

But I like that you are thinking outside of the box.

 

[Shpaget]

One novel idea that I read about once that is kind of like your idea was in the book Red Mars. They built a train track around one of the moons of Mars and as the train circled the moon it generated gravity for the people that were walking on the inside roof of the train. This created a bit of gravity for people on the moon so they would not get sick. Presumebly it was a magnetic train.

Oh Jebus, not again!!
That Mars triology (Red, Green, Blue Mars) is haunting me. I've started reading it at least 5 times and I couldn't get to Chapter II, but every now and then a reference to it pops up and forces me to give it another go.
Generally I read a lot and SciFi is one of my favorites, but somehow that Red Mars doesn't capture me and I always return it to my virtual shelf.