Fusion technology provides the energy requirements needed for humans to enjoy a one–gee environment when lunar colonization begins. People can now live and work permanently on the Moon, including giving birth, in an environment that resembles Earth.
This will probably occur about 120 years after being fully operational, or 20 years after the advent of torchships.
Instead of putting a spinning wheel in Earth's orbit to provide a one–gee environment, we will place the spinning wheel on the lunar surface. This will provide a greater degree of stability than one placed in orbit.
The wheel will have a radius of at least 450 m which equals to 900 m diameter. This implies a circumference of 2,827 m (Image 1 and Image 2).
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| Image 1: Lunar Surface Colony side view |
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| Image 2: Lunar Surface Colony top view |
Geometry shows us that the wheel needs to spin at 0.986 g.
Trigonometry shows us that the "floor" must be set at an angle of 80.4059o.
The wheel will have a spin rate of 8.4o per second (1.4 rotations/minute) with an angular velocity (rim speed) of 65.964 meters per second (147.56 mph).
The wheel will be 21 m wide, which gives us 59,376 m2 of floorspace.
We will provide 2 floors, for a total floorspace of about 118,000 m2. Each floor will be 3.5 m in height.
Electromagnets will allow the wheel to spin on a near–frictionless "surface." The power requirements needed will be enormous (probably around 50 terawatts) which will be provided by tying together a large number of fusion reactors.
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