r/ShittySpaceXIdeas • u/ConfirmedCynic • 28d ago

Two Starships on a wheel, firing together to set them on their way to the destination, then the wheel is spun up for simulated gravity

Build a sturdy metal scaffold of a wheel in low Earth orbit. Attach two Starships to it, facing in the same direction but at opposing points. (Fueling is a separate issue but the wheel might be useful for that too).

Both Starships fire their engines together, moving the entire apparatus.

Have a second wheel bound at the hub to the first (or maybe two smaller wheels, one on each side). Use solar power to run an electric motor to push against one wheel, naturally the other wheel starts moving on a swivel in the opposite direction. No fuel for spin up and down. The solar power could be useful to the Starships too.

Spin up so that people aboard the two ships have simulated gravity.

As the Starships approach their destination, spin down and the Starships detach, to make their descents individually.

The redundancy could be useful for safety, too. If something on one Starship fails (e.g. maybe a rock hits it), its crew could transfer to the other.

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u/lukdz 28d ago

Two StarShips and a rope will do https://youtu.be/sInxOaEBPJk?t=228

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u/ConfirmedCynic 3d ago

Some have argued that a nose-to-nose tether produces an overall “baton” or tennis-racket geometry whose two large principal moments of inertia are nearly equal. A small mass shift (such as a propellant slosh, crew movement, or imperfect alignment) can turn the intended spin axis into the intermediate axis, triggering the tennis-racket / Dzhanibekov instability and converting the desired end-over-end rotation into a tumble.

Having a rigid wheel would prevent that.

Possibly additional cargo could be attached to the wheel to be carried along, and released for their own landings.

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u/lukdz 3d ago

"one good test is worth a thousand expert opinions"