How does a rotating space settlement rotate?What would keep the central sphere of a toridal colony rotating?

Question

I mean to ask the method by which the colony would pri\oduce pesudo gravity.It'll have to rotate but what would be the mechanism for rotation?

Answer 1

Thrusters would do the job, or the center can counter rotate. Thrusters could rotate the whole assembly or a motor, attached to a massive central hub could cause the thing to spin while the angular momentum of the hub is going the other way.

Once you get the thing rotating, you don't really need to keep it going except for the occasional thrust once in a very very long time. Why? because I assume people inside will be moving around, that will alter the angular momentum, but very very little.

Answer 2

The whole station would rotate, and would continue rotating because of its angular momentum.

If there was a dock or similar device at the centre that would need NOT to rotate, they'd probably have to build in an induction motor to keep it turning relative to the wheel.

Answer 3

Rockets, gyroscopes, thrusters, ect.

Add in Newton's second law that says an object in motion tends to stay in motion, and the station will keep rotating on and on forever until something stops it. This is because there is little, if any friction in the vacuum of space.

Answer 4

Some rockets firing in the proper direction would get it spinning. Or they could carefully throw stuff off in the right direction. Since there is no air in space (but there is an air and space museum), there is no friction to slow its spinning down. So doing it once will keep it moving.

Answer 5

exhaust jets on the outside could fire periodically - once "pushed" it goes on it's own with only occasional need for booster's firing