A Side Effect Of Space Travel No One Thought Of...

[Metryq]

Vertigo, the "size" of the station need not involve more volume to make a wider circle. A long truss or cable might have a habitat on one end and some sort of counterbalance on the other (supplies, power station, etc.) Such a design could be "trimmed" easily by trucking the modules up and down the boom the way construction cranes work. (An elevator with robot stevedores could be used to transfer supplies from storage.)

Odds are, public superstitions would prohibit RTGs on the station. Although a power station could be a separate platform that does not rotate. Solar collection might be converted to microwaves and beamed to the inhabited station. The solar platform could be very close to the inhabited station, or anywhere within line-of-sight. Such a solar platform or platforms might even serve other vehicles or stations in orbit, so the power station could be very, very large without worry of approaching ships. (Of course, a standard traffic pattern would have to be arranged so that ships did not intercept power beams.)

[Vertigo]

Yeah you see it is all possible and I agree with all of that however it all adds complications. If only the modules are rotating but other parts are not then you have complicated bearings and access to add into your space station. If everything is rotating then you have problems pointing antennas, solar panels, other sensors at stuff (your solution of separating the power and the station merely complicates it further).

It could all be done. Of course it could. But at what cost and would the benefit of making your astronauts a little more comfortable justify that cost. Well maybe if the conditions being experienced were life threatening, yes. But these conditions do not appear to be serious and so would never justify that extra cost. Not just the cost either, the more complicated something is the more likely it is to fail.

[TacticalLoco]

Originally Posted by HareBrain

It was certainly much harder in Elite, until you bought a docking computer.

Haha! Yes! I hadn't thought about that in a long time. Cool!

[Extollager]

Originally Posted by iansales

That's because no one writes science fiction - or makes science fiction films - which actually show what it's really like. It's all magic technology and a blithe disregards for the difficulties and dangers of getting into space and travelling through space.

Bravo. We sf fans need a little more reality injected into our awareness from time to time, seems to me.

[Metryq]

Originally Posted by Extollager

Bravo. We sf fans need a little more reality injected into our awareness from time to time, seems to me.

Will such a movie sell tickets? DESTINATION MOON and 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY both spent a lot of screen time showing audiences what the near future of spaceflight would look like. At the time, audiences were hungry for anything to do with real spaceflight. Today's audiences may be a bit jaded with the idea. They want escapism, not the boring reality.

However, we may also be on the threshold of renewed interest. For decades we've had the shuttle in low Earth orbit, unmanned probes and space telescopes delivering incredibly detailed images to the living room and the Internet. Those things don't spark the interest—the jealousy—of imagining what it is like to go space adventuring in person. Now that many private companies are accessing space, the dream of going is no longer so far fetched.

I would love to see a "realistic" space movie set sometime between what we have now and what was depicted in 2001. I want to see an adventure set on the technical, economic and political frontier of building the first moonbases, the testing of new engines, and perhaps the adaptation of humans for living in space and on the other bodies of the Solar system. (Cyborgs may be the solution in the early days, until techniques for combating the ravages of spaceflight are developed.)

"Realistic" movies will either expect much from audiences, or have to pack volumes of documentary-like instruction between dramatic events.