[WIP] Space Station

[cereth]

My next commission is a map/floor plan for a space station. All I had to go on was text as to what the station looks like, and I've been looking for an excuse to play around with Google SketchUp. The description of the station is basically a series of "Stanford Torus" rings orbiting an "O'neil Cylinder". This is what I've come up with so far. I'm pretty happy with the results so far considering it is my first go around with SketchUp.

[Brandon]

I think it's pretty damn cool!

[PeterDracos]

Looks pretty cool - though mixing Stanford Toruses and O'Neill Cylinders is logically unlikely (especially since they have the same radius!). Better to say that the central cylinder either contains the mirrors that direct light into the toruses or something like that, or administrative stuff (with no gravity). Centrifugal gravity is directly proportionate to radius, so at the 1-mile radius of a Stanford Torus or an O'Neill Cylinder, a few stories up or down doesn't make much difference - but wrapping a torus around a cylinder and spinning them both for gravity would be awkward (unless you were deliberately trying to evoke the effect). One of the little side notes they had for Babylon 5 was that Down Below - the decks below (outside) the main habitable decks weren't deliberately used because they had a higher level of gravity. (B5 was much, much less than 1 mile in diameter.)

I haven't played with Google Sketchup for more than about 90 seconds, so forgive me if this isn't possible - but you might be able to get a more dynamic look by moving the toroids out of alignment - figure that they'll be made up of two counter-rotating pairs (it makes the whole thing easier to point at the sun).

[PeterDracos]

Looks pretty cool - though mixing Stanford Toruses and O'Neill Cylinders is logically unlikely (especially since they have the same radius!). Better to say that the central cylinder either contains the mirrors that direct light into the toruses or something like that, or administrative stuff (with no gravity). Centrifugal gravity is directly proportionate to radius, so at the 1-mile radius of a Stanford Torus or an O'Neill Cylinder, a few stories up or down doesn't make much difference - but wrapping a torus around a cylinder and spinning them both for gravity would be awkward (unless you were deliberately trying to evoke the effect). One of the little side notes they had for Babylon 5 was that Down Below - the decks below (outside) the main habitable decks weren't deliberately used because they had a higher level of gravity. (B5 was much, much less than 1 mile in diameter.)

I haven't played with Google Sketchup for more than about 90 seconds, so forgive me if this isn't possible - but you might be able to get a more dynamic look by moving the toroids out of alignment - figure that they'll be made up of two counter-rotating pairs (it makes the whole thing easier to point at the sun).

[cereth]

Yes, the central cylinder is entirely administrative in nature and has very low gravity. The reactor and other engineering type stuff mainly goes in there.

[bartmoss]

The center (low gravity) will probably contain manufacturing and engineering rather than anything else, the point of spinning the thing is to provide gravity to its people, and if the administrators then spend half their time in zero/low-g anyway that's a bit of a problem. Manufacturing, engineering, communications and computer equipment etc doesn't care, and would only be visited for maintenance and repairs.

The station itself looks very cool, it's a really classic design.

[cereth]

Here is an update...I'm still playing around with the overall composition, but the effect is about what I want. I still need to squeeze the layouts for two more rings someplace. I think if I move stuff around I can fit them all on.

The other picture I think is kinda cool showing one of the rings from the inside. If I were completely insane I'd model the inside of the rings as well.

[cereth]

I played around a bit with the composition and I think I can make everything fit now. This is almost done.

[greypilgrim]

Hi - first post here, new to the community. I look forward to sharing and learning from you all.

Just as a quick FYI side-note: Babylon was 5 miles long and less than a mile in diameter (though I cannot recall off the top of my head the actual figure).

[Lyandra]

This looks really great. And the inside of the ring looks cool indeed. If I might say this... A pity you are not completely insane, I would love to see the inside of those rings modeled.