punder: four-Starship dual-gravity station (2022)
Design summary
- Configuration. A tail-to-tail Starship pair with their noses docked to two more Starships. At ~2 rpm that gives 0.38 g in the outer pair and 0.17 g in the inner pair: Mars and Moon g at once. Solar arrays act as sunshades, with the axis at the sun punder, 2022-12-25.
- Earlier punder ideas:
- A deployable truss or inflatable tube (Voskhod airlock) from the Dragon trunk to the upper stage punder, 2015-09-03.
- The Revolve foldable wheel as a packable spoked torus punder, 2019-05-11.
- Even with $10B, NASA would take ≥ a decade punder, 2018-07-31.
Critiques raised
- Paul451: Starship tank walls can take the loads, but the nose docking port can't Paul451, 2022-12-26.
Open questions
- Can the nose-to-nose joints carry the combined tension?