How would centripetal gravity work?
Hi satsumo, this is an interesting set of questions. If the station were big enough, the “gravity” at its outer rim would feel like normal gravity for most intents and purposes. Say the rim of the station is 100 meters from the center. At that distance the station would have to rotate at 0.313 radians per second (or complete 3 revolutions per minute) to simulate one gee at the rim. Your tangential (or “sideways”) velocity at that distance would be 31.3 meters per second, so if you jumped straight “up” (toward the center of the hub), you’d also be moving 31.3 m/s perpendicular to an imaginary line connecting you to the center of the station. Now let’s apply a little more math to see what the situation would be like. Suppose you’re standing at the rim of a 100-meter radius rotating space station, and you jump “upward” with an initial velocity of 5 m/s. Your velocity relative to a stationary point would be the same as the hypotenuse of a right triangle with legs of 5 m/s and 31.3 m/s. So
