BIS SPACE project: Avalon, Armstrong factory, Island Zero

The British Interplanetary Society's rotating-settlement studies, presented to the thread mostly by lamontagne (a minor participant in the project).

Summary of what the thread established

• Avalon (JBIS Oct 2019) lamontagne, 2023-09-28; lamontagne, 2023-09-29; lamontagne, 2023-09-29:
• 1 km diameter, 10,000 people, contra-rotating, sun-facing, beamed power, 3 m walls.
• The central habitat, hub and end spaceports rotate; the hub carries the radiators; each shell meets the 1.3:1 stability criterion.
• A massive outer shield counter-rotates at lower rpm, joined at the perimeter by magnetic suspension with backup rails and wheels.
• Rotating berthing docks carry ships to a permanent dock, so there are no rotating pressure seals.
• Triple hull at 100/66/33 kPa: three ~18 cm steel shells with 3 cm gaps. 12 serpentine steel bulkheads 50 m apart.
• Spokes act as solar-updraft air heat transport lamontagne, 2023-09-28. Shield ~6–7 t/m² lamontagne, 2024-03-20.
• Armstrong factory lamontagne, 2023-10-02; lamontagne, 2023-10-02; lamontagne, 2023-10-02:
• The construction factory for Avalon: a fixed hub + two counter-rotating 200 m rings mostly open to space, 1 g at 3 rpm.
• Process decks (separation works better in gravity, and is Earth-testable); two habitats per ring; teleoperation.
• Island Zero (Jerry Stone) lamontagne, 2026-07-05; lamontagne, 2026-07-08; lamontagne, 2026-08-20:
• A variable-gravity experimentation and general-use station, precursor to Avalon.
• Updated from Skylon-launched inflatables to rigid Starship modules at 1.0, 0.9, 0.8 and 0.7 g.
• Tension rods carry the loads; Vast-derived modules with 2.9 m ports and observation domes; 15 × 5 m modules.
• BIS SPACE drum-station construction jig using a Strickland triangular truss lamontagne, 2024-02-11.
• Orbital Settlement Project (2nd year): works backwards from Avalon to the first station, then onward to a solar-system society (avalonspace1.wordpress.com) lamontagne, 2026-09-18.
• Papers: JBIS v73 no. 6 (Avalon life support), v73 no. 10 (sizing practices) lamontagne, 2023-10-19. Active shielding was deemed too power-hungry lamontagne, 2023-09-14.

Critiques raised

• Twark_Main: a triple hull accumulates fatigue cycles equally in all layers, so failures are correlated Twark_Main, 2023-09-29.

Open questions

• Can the magnetic perimeter suspension between counter-rotating shells be made fail-safe?

Related pages

• Pressure vessels · Cylinders and spheres · Funding

Sources

Forum posts

• lamontagne, 2023-09-14 (reply #3935, 1 like): Active shielding verdict (1 like). Post.
• lamontagne, 2023-09-28 (reply #4033, 3 likes): Avalon renders (3 likes). Post. Attachments: Image122_002.png, Image123_003.png.
• lamontagne, 2023-09-28 (reply #4036): Spokes updraft. Post.
• lamontagne, 2023-09-29 (reply #4060): Avalon details. Post.
• Twark_Main, 2023-09-29 (reply #4065): Correlated cycles. Post.
• lamontagne, 2023-09-29 (reply #4066): Triple hull. Post.
• lamontagne, 2023-10-02 (reply #4099, 3 likes): Armstrong factory (3 likes). Post. Attachments: Armstrong1.jpg, Armstrong factory3.jpg.
• lamontagne, 2023-10-02 (reply #4100): Detail. Post. Attachments: Armstrong factory.png, Armstrong factory2.png, Armstrong factory3.png.
• lamontagne, 2023-10-02 (reply #4105): More. Post.
• lamontagne, 2023-10-19 (reply #4221): JBIS papers. Post. Attachments: JBIS-v73-no06-June-2020_5ccjwp avalon life support.pdf, JBIS-v73-no10-October-2020_r4pw21.pdf.
• lamontagne, 2024-02-11 (reply #4465, 3 likes): Construction jig (3 likes). Post. Attachments: Image84_002.png, Image78_000.png, Image71_004.png.
• lamontagne, 2024-03-20 (reply #4594, 1 like): Avalon shield. Post. Attachments: costs.PNG, JBIS-v72-no09-September-October-2019_dk64ll.pdf.
• lamontagne, 2026-07-05 (reply #5064, 1 like): Island Zero (1 like). Post. Attachments: Image19.jpg.
• lamontagne, 2026-07-08 (reply #5072, 1 like): Rods (1 like). Post. Attachments: Module Assembly_e.jpg, Image15_000.jpg.
• lamontagne, 2026-08-20 (reply #5082, 1 like): Modules (1 like). Post. Attachments: Image10_002.jpg, Image9_002.jpg, Image10_000.jpg, Image14_001.jpg, Image22.jpg.
• lamontagne, 2026-09-18 (reply #5142, 6 likes): BIS web pages (6 likes). Post.

External references

• JBIS 72(9) 2019; 73(6) and 73(10) 2020.
• avalonspace1.wordpress.com