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Skylon

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1 hour ago, NSEP said:

think the best option is to just not go for artificial gravity at all, and use the treadmills and zero-g toilets everyone hates instead.

IIRC, their emanenetly practical solution to extended weightlessness is simply to (at least eventually) burn more fuel for a much faster transit, getting the time to Mars down from six-plus months to only a few weeks. 

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Send 2 vehicles to Mars (one cargo). Tether them from the nose and spin slower, at a larger diameter. Profit. You also have some new abort modes (cargo vessel could transfer props to crew vehicle, etc).

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2 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

You would need a counter-rotating weight to prevent torque rotation of the ship each time you start and stop the ring. It's all overly complex and unnecessary.

Rotating a 9m ship is pointless. The gravity would be unnoticeable and with your head rotating at a faster speed than your feet, it would be negated by all sorts of side-effects (dizzyness, nausea, etc...). It might be interesting to use a BFS as an experiment, but not for months of transit to Mars.

This 9 meter that is 4.5 meter radius, shave of some decimeter for hull insulation and padding, so 4.3 max, average height is 1.7 meter so your head get 60% of the g your feet gets. 
Generating your own down force running sounds more fun. 

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11 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

*cough*ULA*coughcough*<_<

So, in light of recent discussions, this:

Despite his insistence that a pod bay door override button will also be included, I think this might be settings a bad precedent... -_-

He also says:

So it is unclear if they actually intend to spin it up or not.

2 hours ago, AVaughan said:

Which is why I suggested placing the drum inside the hull and spinning the drum one way and the rest of the ship the other. 

Note that I wasn't arguing that spacex should do this, just that it would be better/easier than adding a 'yyyyyyuge reaction wheel' that could spin up/spin down the entire ship.

That would be better, but anyone who wanted to use the rotating room would have to reacclimate to the already discussed coriolis forces.

 

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3 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Ah, so apparently the secret to rapid, efficient reuse is to plant the old boosters and grow new ones. :D

Musk's secret new plan to master asparagus staging perhaps? :D

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5 hours ago, AVaughan said:

Yeah well 5 rpm gets you about 0.12g, but I don't see that fast a rotation rate working with the windows in each sleeping cabin.  (I pretty sure that would make me so dizzy that the only alternative would be to shutter those windows, making them pointless).

At that RPM the stars will be whizzing past the window at rate equivalent to trees by the road flashing by a car at the reckless pace of 10mph. I am terribly sorry but anyone that susceptible to motion sickness may just have to forego any hope of visiting Mars until torch ships become practical.

Now the coriolis effects and rotation itself are another matter entirely and their effect easily dwarfs that of the view outside. In fact covering the window won't do anything except possibly make things worse. Seeing the stars moving just may let the brain reconcile the feeling of rotation with the apparent stillness of the body by understanding that the entire room is in fact rotating.

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51 minutes ago, monophonic said:

At that RPM the stars will be whizzing past the window at rate equivalent to trees by the road flashing by a car at the reckless pace of 10mph. I am terribly sorry but anyone that susceptible to motion sickness may just have to forego any hope of visiting Mars until torch ships become practical.

Now the coriolis effects and rotation itself are another matter entirely and their effect easily dwarfs that of the view outside. In fact covering the window won't do anything except possibly make things worse. Seeing the stars moving just may let the brain reconcile the feeling of rotation with the apparent stillness of the body by understanding that the entire room is in fact rotating.

The only star you are going to see is the sun. It might be hard to sleep when the sun is constantly illuminating your cabin, but im really not sure.

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1 hour ago, NSEP said:

The only star you are going to see is the sun. It might be hard to sleep when the sun is constantly illuminating your cabin, but im really not sure.

Why would stars be invisible? The Apollo astronauts saw stars. You wouldn't really want to look directly at the sun.

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6 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Why would stars be invisible? The Apollo astronauts saw stars. You wouldn't really want to look directly at the sun.

They would be somewhat visible, but because the spacecraft is spinning quite fast, and the sun is in the way, i doubt you would see much. Seeing stars requires a bit of ajusting, and ajusting your eyes to see stars might be a little harder when the sun is right in your face every few seconds.

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8 minutes ago, NSEP said:

They would be somewhat visible, but because the spacecraft is spinning quite fast, and the sun is in the way, i doubt you would see much. Seeing stars requires a bit of ajusting, and ajusting your eyes to see stars might be a little harder when the sun is right in your face every few seconds.

You need to keep the solar panels in full sunlight, so you'd point the ship either radially toward the sun, or radially away from it. Probably the latter. In that instance, you wouldn't ever have the sun in your eyes.

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I would like there to be a real window of some sorts like on the front of the ship. Nothing too big.

Just in case there is a problem with the electricity or we want to send Flat Earthers to space .

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Yeah, that. For the same reasons modern seaships carry binoculars and signal rockets, despite radars, radio and other advanced doodads onboard :). Things break, and Murphy's Laws waste no occasion to strike.

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6 hours ago, Wjolcz said:

Isn't the BFS planned to have a couple of big windows in front? Although I wouldn't be surprised if they got smaller as the development progresses.

Yes. I don't think those windows will stay that huge neither, i wouldn't be surprised if they reduced to the size of airplane windows.

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I can never tell if he's joking or not.

If he's serious I'd imagine the regulatory framework would kill it... I've looked into trying to make a tiny liquid fueled or solid fueled rocket by myself but there are dozens of laws that prohibit it.

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36 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

I can never tell if he's joking or not.

If he's serious I'd imagine the regulatory framework would kill it... I've looked into trying to make a tiny liquid fueled or solid fueled rocket by myself but there are dozens of laws that prohibit it.

Check out a local amateur rocketry club, there are folks who build these and they could probably steer ya in the right direction.
And your rocket, as well, because them laws, y'know...

 

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1 minute ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Check out a local amateur rocketry club, there are folks who build these and they could probably steer ya in the right direction.
And your rocket, as well, because them laws, y'know...

 

"local"

"middle of nowhere"

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39 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

I can never tell if he's joking or not.

If he's serious I'd imagine the regulatory framework would kill it... I've looked into trying to make a tiny liquid fueled or solid fueled rocket by myself but there are dozens of laws that prohibit it.

Aside from being totally impossible you'd also constantly be grilling cars and pedestrians around you. Maybe he will sell a Tesla branded Spoiler with attached "Flamethrowers" though. Somebody would surely buy that.

Edited by Canopus
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41 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

I can never tell if he's joking or not.

The fact that he has specified a number of engines means that someone already came up with a rough design for this. I do wonder how far back the engine flame would go.

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