Dec 142011
A NASA artist concept for a three-arm space station, dated 1962.
This space station would be launched as a unit by a single Saturn V, with the arms folded down, forming a cylinder. In orbit the arms would hinge up and the space station would rotate, generating artificial gravity.
Dennis R. Jenkins wrote an article on such space station designs, published in Aerospace Projects Review issue V1N6.
A high resolution version of this is available HERE.
8 Responses to “Radial-Arm Space Station”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
…and this is why heavy-lift would be a nice thing to have.
We could build cool crap like this with ONE launch, not the dozens the ISS has taken.
Or if we’re still willing to tollerate dozens of launches and on-orbit assembly, think of the REALLY cool crap we could put up there.
I don’t understand the utility of the arms having a thin lens-shaped cross section. With the arms folded down, they wouldn’t form a cylinder all that well — I would have expected cross sections shaped more like wide pie wedges. If the segmentation of the arms is intended to represent different levels in a “vertical” stack in artificial gravity, the narrow-oval floor layout doesn’t seem to be a good use of space. Also, the station doesn’t seem to be rotating in this picture, otherwise the tethered individual floating at the end of the nearest arm would be in a very difficult position. It’s as though the illustrator didn’t understand the concepts very well.
While a pie-wedge would be the best use of space, it would be structurally bad for a pressurized structure. Best pressurized cross-section is a circle; if you have to diverge from that, it’s best to go with something composed of circular segments. Given the constraints, the lens-shape is about the best.
Stations like this would stop rotation from time to time for maintenance, which *presumably* is what’s going on here.
It’s the Pilgrim Observer, even down to stubby Apollo service modules:
http://www.ninfinger.org/models/kitplans/mpc9001.html
Hah! I wonder if the same people were involved in the two designs?
“Pilgrim” was designed by (or at least under the direction of) G. Harry Stine. While Stine had nothing to do with the space station programs -so far as I’m aware – he would certainly have been aware of the station designs, since they received a fair amount of press at the time.
Bigelow needs to do something like this with his Transhab modules.
I think his Transhab type full sized station masses out to 70 tons or so–entry level SLS if I’m not mistaken. Same for JIMO if that ever makes a return. Even entry level SLS will have many payload options. Space based Radar–something like Atlast–Mars sample return missions more robustly designed than EELV payloads that would demand Rube Goldberg mission complexity…