December 24, 2025 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.
- Russia patents space station designed to generate artificial gravity
And I have a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you cheap! The chances of Russia building this in the next decade is nil. Nor does this patent have any force of law outside Russia. The idea is not original.
- Apollo 8 entered lunar orbit this week
Nice picture at the link, but if you really want to know what happened on this mission, you need to read Genesis: The story of Apollo 8.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.
- Russia patents space station designed to generate artificial gravity
And I have a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you cheap! The chances of Russia building this in the next decade is nil. Nor does this patent have any force of law outside Russia. The idea is not original.
- Apollo 8 entered lunar orbit this week
Nice picture at the link, but if you really want to know what happened on this mission, you need to read Genesis: The story of Apollo 8.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
I reread that Space.com article on the spinning torus station “idea” (from the 1960s) several times to make sure I was reading what I was reading. It may be the dumbest patent troll in my lifetime. Why didn’t the website challenge this claim? Are they attempting deadpan?
Maybe Stanley Kubrick’s estate can challenge that patent if no one else will.
BBC Television Special Coverage of Apollo 8
James Burke, Patrick Moore, and Sir Bernard Lovell (what a Trio!)
( 1 of 3 clips total) (at 71:26:00 elapsed mission time)
https://archive.org/details/apollo-8-bbc-coverage
The Unburied Voices
from the album: “Dark Side of the Moon” (1973)
https://youtu.be/CJvSzJphgT8
1:56
1. Gerry O’Driscoll; (The “You are not getting past me” front doorman at Abbey Road Studios.)
“There is no dark side in the moon, really”. “Matter of fact it’s all dark!” “The only thing that makes it look light is, the Sun.”
Don’t know why they dropped in the picture of the spinning torus when the patent picture looks more like a child’s Jack. Seems too flimsy, likely to break apart before they can spin it up to five revolutions per minute. It may achieve 1/10 of a G if it has structural support to keep from cracking the hub. Far better to create a continuous thrust rocket for simulated gravity without the inner ear problems.
Max, the continuous thrust rocket doesn’t stay in one place; and if it did it would blow out all its propellant.
We want artificial gravity for stations in a Lagrange halo, or in high Earth orbit (GEO would be good, it can dangle a tether over Nairobi).
Thank you Wayne
Merry Christmas Wayne and all !
It’s tricky to read patents. Journalists hardly ever get it right. You can’t just read the title and look at the drawings.
What this Russian patent claims, is a particular way to construct a non-rotating central hub as part of a larger rotating station. Maybe their scheme is novel, maybe it isn’t. But they are not claiming the idea of a “rotating space station”.
This Russian patent references an earlier US patent from Boeing, with similar claims: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10099805B2/
Do you think it’s more likely that Russia or Boeing will build theirs first? :-)
Thanks, Wayne, for the BBC clip. I’d never seen that before.
Steve G, good point.
Patenting an idea, then having proof of concept is another matter. (China will disregard either patent)
David Ross,
You are correct in that I failed to consider a nonmoving habitat. I see no other way around providing artificial gravity then a spinning device when locked in orbit.
Tether extending down to Mount Kilimanjaro is still a long ways off… the counter mass that the cable is attached to must rotate in time with its revolution. If a rotating space station is the counter mass, then it must have two wheels that rotate in opposite directions to cancel the inertia which is doable. Otherwise, it would hold its position firm like a gyroscope wheel twisting the tether with every rotation.
A continuous thrust motor which will solve the gravity problem will not work unless you’re moving as you pointed it out. Only during travel to other planets, or outside the solar system in a generational craft, will this be useful.
In my mind, a generational ship would be cigar shaped craft with the only chemical rockets stored inside hanger bays for when they reach their destinations.
A continuous thrust mothership for “in system” use would probably be shaped like a top, so when they reach an astroid or small moon (in weeks or months instead of multiple years), it can rotate providing secondary gravity when holding position, or orbit, without flipping end over end.
Every ship manufactured in orbit will be built for a purpose, some for science, some for exploration, others for mining or colonization. Smaller craft (like shuttles) used for moving satellite/spent boosters (capturing) and cargo haulers will be robotic using the same recycling technology without refueling until the energy supply (nuclear power plants or RTG batteries) is spent. (finished products and raw materials from the astroid belt can be sent back to the earth/moon this way)
David Ross said;
“it would blow out all its propellant“
My hypothesis for future space travel within our generation is not to use spendable propellant into the vacuum of space, but rather recycle thrusting medium and use it continuously. The simplest solution proven reliable and fully understood used here on earth will also work in space travel. Super heated water, which is not toxic, expands explosively, and yet not dangerously, and will condense from water vapor to a liquid in the cold of space rather quickly.
So thrust motor(s) located at the top of a hollow shell, which is embedded with crew quarters, hydroponics etc. staying warm from residual heat from the steam, allowing water to condense in the near vacuum before collecting at the opposite end of the craft in a lake (tanks) surrounding the nuclear reactor which provides the power for the ship and pumps the water back to the nose for heating the water in a plasma chamber? into propellant again, and again, and again…
(You can also separate water into hydrogen and oxygen at temperatures above 2000° creating more thrust… But there will be some hydrogen loss and hydrogen imbrittlemeant of the parts involved creating wear and eventual failure)
Depending on the size of the ship, an expansion chamber might be necessary that folds back up around the entire ship. Not only will additional volume aid in conducting the -300°F space cold to the near vacuum between hulls that helps condense water vapor into a liquid, it’ll help the ship retain its warmth, protect from micro meteor Impacts, act as external storage for cargo, tools, back up water supply and smaller craft not exposed to space which can be worked on without fear of being “lost in space”. The outer hull can also be magnetized to reduce radiation exposure. (rotating shell is optional)
I don’t like wasting resources, the way we currently use rocket ships is like buying a car to go to the grocery store and back, then throwing it away and buying a new car for the next time you need it.
Someone here or in article comments mentioned “inner ear problem” It best be rather meagre centrifugal acceleration in a finite diameter field lest Coriolus just from crouching and standing would be disabling. At least for me who has rolled at Mach 1 but still gets crippling nausea on the circus Octopus. Even General Relativity (gravity) depends on Pi.
Max,
You might want to review your Newtonian Mechanics. The only way reaction mass can propel a ship in space is to let it go entirely. “Catching” any of it, once it’s moving, will simply retard the ship. What you’ve described is a form of perpetual motion machine. It won’t work.
Newtons third law, for every action there’s an opposite and equal reaction…
This is not any more perpetual motion than an air conditioning unit recycling its own freon coolant.
The forces involved is like two fireman holding a fire hose Under high pressure and being lifted into the air. (with 1800° High pressure water, it would lift 10 men into the air by exploding steam at the nozzle creating thrust)
The power demands are excessive which is why it needs a nuclear reactor that could power a small city. Perpetual motion would not require such power. (self sustaining)
Except for gravity wells, there’s very little resistance or friction in space. (The atmospheric friction at blast off is left behind planet side) The forces of action and reaction are manifest in a vacuum.
Whether a rocket dumps it’s fuel into the vacuum of space, or dump it’s fuel into the vacuum of an expansion chamber will not change it’s vector of reactionary forces. The exception is a rocket will get lighter as it uses up its mass but then when the fuel is gone it is done. Recycling fuel continues the reaction (although not a strong) then gathers up the condensed vapor it does it again for as long as the Nuclear reactor makes power, add the seals hold tight. (put a nozzle on your garden hose and you’ll see the forces I’m talking about)
If the craft has 20 or more thrust nozzles in the nose of the craft, radiators for the steam to pass through may be necessary for rapid cooling. (to avoid an over large expansion chamber)It’s best if no moving parts are utilized for long-term reliability… methods of cooling conducting the heat into space will have to be experimented with.
With a cheap reliable power source, nowhere in the solar system will be out of bounds.. all within our grasp..
“Newtons third law, for every action there’s an opposite and equal reaction…”
And there, sir, I fear you refute your own argument, in the very next sentence:
“This is not any more perpetual motion than an air conditioning unit recycling its own freon coolant.”
Heat transfer in a working fluid isn’t perpetual motion; it’s phase change, and in a closed system, there should be no loss. The engineering is in how you want the changes to occur. You are also describing a closed system, so your analogy holds to that point. When you want to move mass around, you need to send some in the direction opposite the intended travel vector.