Only thing I didn't see addressed in this rather impressive video was the unfortunate phenomena of "space junk". Even micro-meteorites going typical speeds can easily puncture one of those modules...

The problem I see is that only things that are actually attached to the shell of the rotating "space station" will be affected.

Imagine your yo-yo being hollow and in outer space. Centrifugal force only affects the shell of the yo-yo, but not any items floating within the yo-yo. Same goes with the weight on a string.

Have there been actual experiments, in space, to prove this theory of artificial gravity within a spinning container? Things work much differently in the weightlessness of space that they do on the surface of our planet.

Sounds a lot like Arthur C. Clarke's vehicles in the Rendesvous with Rama series (not his best, BTW).

just us old farts..

Randy, this is basic physics. Try it yourself. Hold some wright on a string and spin it around - try a yo-yo.

I loved the series ;^) (Thanks to nickursis for recommending the series and thanks to you DavidT for reminding me how good it was!)

So, has this artificial gravity method actually been tested? I've only seen it in science fiction.

Read "Live Free or Die" (gotta love the title) by John Ringo (first in a series) for his take on this very subject. In shortthey use a solar "laser" using a bunch o mirrors to heat the asteroid while spinning it after drilling a hole through it. By controlling where it was heated they were able to leave the ends relatively small and thick while inflating the center. Good series in it's own right, if you like science fiction.

Me dino was wondering when someone would get around to writing that.

Those docking sequences should have music to go with it - I would vote for "The Blue Danube!" This is right out of 2001: A Space Odyssey! And we already have HAL (or, we could, but so far, just "Alexa" and "Siri"). Arthur C. Clark's vision is coming true - maybe 20 years later than he envisioned back in 1968, but still very cool!

beam me up scotty...

somehow, this seems like a world of the ultra rich. Views might powerful at first, but I think I would long for the Rocky Mountains, the Ohio farmland, some wild horses, and the simple life. If i go in space, it will be when the mother ship comes to reclaim me, fugive from Roswell.

In May 1975 I attended the first Conference on Manufacturing Facilities in Space at Princeton, hosted by Dr. Gerard O'Neil. It included orbiting habitats at L5 (Lagrange Point 5) that were cylinders 30 km long and 3 km in diameter. There were beautiful artist's renderings of what it may look like.

Google "1975 conference on manufacturing facilities in space at princeton" for lots of details including the NASA Ames/Stanford Summer Study as a followup.

YES - see an example in Space Odyssey 2001 - beautifully presented to the Blue Danube Waltz.

The Expanse is a great show. The special effects are awesome.

Me dino had high hopes for Year 2001 in outer space when I saw that movie. Crud!

"you could put a spin on an asteroid"
The TV show Expanse does a great job of showing what a hollowed at asteroid might look light.

One effect of using centrifugal force is that when objects drop, they don't fall straight "down" away from the axis of rotation. Like all objects they carry on in a straight tangential line and therefore appear to curve away from the direction of rotation. The effect would not be noticable in a very large diameter station spinning slowly. But in a reasonable size object, like a small asteroid, if you spin it fast enough to get earth gravity, that Coriolis-like effect gets worse. So you have to find a happy medium, spinning fast enough to have some gravity but not so fast as to make the effects spinning become to disorienting.

The cool thing is Expanse shows the effect without telling.

The article mentions a Hilton on a space station. I had hoped to see one built by the year 2001.
https://i.postimg.cc/QdVFVV3f/2001-hi...

Docking ships can spin themselves to match the spin of the dock. Mining will be inside the asteroid so no stars to see. Spin probably should be minimized during mining, but there is much to be discovered about mining in a very low gravity environment. Little weight but lots of mass. Ability to change the spin of the asteroid could be extremely important, too.

Haven't thought of it before but you could put a spin on an asteroid with a brief burst of an anchored-down rocket engine.
Once the proper spin is created, you don't have to keep running the rocket engine in outer space.
Maybe a braking rocket engine pointed the other way may be a good idea.
Yeah, put a temporary stop on the spin so a cargo ship can land.
The stars may move quickly past if one looks up from whatever he is mining, but that shouldn't be a bother.
(Now that's what me dino calls thinking outside of the box). .

One beauty of a multi-level colony is that the spin can remain constant and the centrifugal effect varies on distance from the center. At the center very low gravity effect will exist and at larger radius away from the center higher gravity effect will exist. Pick your gravity by picking your level. Older people can select less gravity. Normal gravity will be available for "normal" ops and higher than normal gravity can be experimented with, to stress the strongest materials (or dinos.)
Another advantage is that a very large colony population is possible in a small-ish asteroid. The exterior of the asteroid might be used to generate power for the colony.

That was an excellent PS to the top reply.
Also, it long ago occurred to me that asteroids could prove very lucrative for mining minerals..
Better to have robots do the job due to asteroids having very little gravity.

Please understand that I'm talking about a privately funded commercial mission, not a government funded boondoggle.

I'm in favor of a mission to capture a high-iron content asteroid and bring it (slowly) to a lagrange point for mining via tunneling its interior. Then spin the shell and build a many leveled colony inside (using the mined content as raw materials.) That should keep a lot of robots employed for a decade or two and build the expertise needed for space exploration. It's a big job that requires a lot of human cooperation and no governmental involvement.