Assembling such a station and pressurizing it would present formidable obstacles, which, although not beyond NASA's technical capability, would be beyond available budgets. First, such a station would be very difficult to construct, given the limited lifting capability available to the United States and other spacefaring nations. NASA has never attempted to build a rotating wheel space station, for several reasons. The Stanford torus, proposed by NASA in 1975, is an enormous version of the same concept, that could harbor an entire city. In 1959, a NASA committee opined that such a space station was the next logical step after the Mercury program. The 3-deck wheel would revolve at 3 RPM to provide artificial one-third gravity. They envisioned a rotating wheel with a diameter of 76 meters (250 feet). In the 1950s, Wernher von Braun and Willy Ley, writing in Colliers Magazine, updated the idea, in part as a way to stage spacecraft headed for Mars.

He even suggested it be placed in a geostationary orbit. Herman Potočnik introduced a spinning wheel station with a 30-meter diameter in his Problem der Befahrung des Weltraums ( The Problem of Space Travel). Konstantin Tsiolkovsky wrote about using rotation to create an artificial gravity in space in 1903. History īoth scientists and science fiction writers have thought about the concept of a rotating wheel space station since the beginning of the 20th century. In theory, the station could be configured to simulate the gravitational acceleration of Earth (9.81 m/s 2), allowing for human long stays in space without the drawbacks of microgravity. Occupants of the station would experience centrifugal acceleration, according to the following equation: a = − ω 2 r is linear acceleration at any point along its perimeter. This type of station rotates about its axis, creating an environment of artificial gravity. Originally proposed by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in 1903, the idea was expanded by Herman Potočnik in 1929. Wernher von Braun 1952 concept.Ī rotating wheel space station, also known as a von Braun wheel, is a concept for a hypothetical wheel-shaped space station.

Gravity design