Space poles

[Willshikabob]

I'm currently creating a theoretical space habitat that would resemble a collection of Torus rings. Now, to keep them away from each other, I'm attaching them by 7 poles of 2219 aluminum on each ring to a motor that rotates them for artificial gravity and slight position adjustments. Now, I still need to do the trig, but I'm wondering if these poles will become stressed by rotations and if they can could withstand losing a pole. I'll get the trig on a soon as possible. 

[Frank]

How are the torus rings arranged?  The obvious way would be as a stack which would make me wonder why not a cylinder, then there are no poles to worry about.

I haven't found a good way to deal with solar particle events and cosmic rays when considering space colony habitats.  It's very important to long term population well being.  Have you though of a way around that?

As to the pole arrangement, I would think that if the stresses are enough to damage one pole out of seven, six would soon after meet their demise since the same stress would be on the fewer remaining poles.

 

[Sensei]

16 minutes ago, Frank said:

I haven't found a good way to deal with solar particle events and cosmic rays when considering space colony habitats.  It's very important to long term population well being.  Have you though of a way around that?

Did you hear about Gold foil experiment? It's one century old..

Even thin layer of Gold foil reflects majority of alpha particles from radioactive isotope.

 

 

Edited January 20, 2018 by Sensei

[Frank]

I hadn't hear of this experiment, but from what I understand, it's about determining atomic nucleus size and not about blocking cosmic rays.

"Most of the -particles were able to pass through the gold foil without encountering anything large enough to significantly deflect their path. A small fraction of the -particles came close to the nucleus of a gold atom as they passed through the foil. When this happened, the force of repulsion between the positively charged -particle and the nucleus deflected the -particle by a small angle. Occasionally, an -particle traveled along a path that would eventually lead to a direct collision with the nucleus of one of the 2000 or so atoms it had to pass through. When this happened, repulsion between the nucleus and the -particle deflected the -particle through an angle of 90^o or more. " - http://chemed.chem.purdue.edu/genchem/history/gold.html

It's been shown that aluminium typically used in spacecraft scatter high energy particles into many slower particles that cause more damage to human tissue.  Despite our orbiting ISS being inside the earth's magnetic field, mostly,  astronauts are still affected.  Adequate shielding requires heavy material, for example 5 to 10 m of regolith for a moon base to equal earth's protection by it's atmosphere.  The latest thing I've read is about hydrogen being the best shield, but still a massive thickness is required.

Artificial magnetic shielding so far seems impractical, heavier than the material required to shield, plus needing power and the added risks of large electromagnetic fields.

 

[Willshikabob]

12 hours ago, Frank said:

How are the torus rings arranged?

They're arranged one inside of another, like a ring within a ring within a ring, I've considered a cylinder but for the purpose of the project I'm doing it has to be a innovation, not a recreation of the O'Neill Cylinder, very much like the formation you described.

[Frank]

So each torus will have different levels of artificial gravity.  I would think about a tensile structure like a bicycle wheel instead of poles between the tori, less mass or stronger structure for the same mass.  It would then be easier to have a large numbers of spokes that could withstand a meteorite (external event) break.

Sending such a colony to Mars for example might be another way to colonize.  A slow, large ship that can use a low(er) energy Ballistic capture trajectory.  Then use small landers that can shuttle people to the surface and back.

 

Edited January 20, 2018 by Frank
missing word