Sheet 2 · Interior
Interior
The floor is the inside of the rim: a band 500 m long and 1,257 m around, divided into three zones along the axis. Total floor area is 628,300 m² (62.8 ha).
Zone schedule computed: A = 2πr · l, r = 200 m
| Zone | Length (m) | Area (m²) | ha | acres | Use |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zone A (fore) | 169.5 | 213,000 | 21.3 | 52.6 | Farms, orchards and hamlets: all 60,000 m² of crops, cottages with gardens |
| Walking strip | 161.0 | 202,300 | 20.2 | 50.0 | Four villages round plazas: apartment blocks, civic buildings, cottages |
| Zone B (aft) | 169.5 | 213,000 | 21.3 | 52.6 | Woods, meadows, estate houses and the reservoir |
| Total | 500.0 | 628,300 | 62.8 | 155.3 |
Walking strip 161 m × 1,257 m
A continuous band around the full circumference. Walking the loop in one direction returns you to the start after 1,257 m, about 15 minutes at 1.4 m/s. Four villages sit 90° apart round it, each a paved plaza ringed by five-storey apartment blocks and a pair of civic buildings, with cottages along the lanes between them. A winding promenade joins the plazas, and a small lake sits in the fore half.
The loop is 1.26 km, about three laps of a 400 m running track. From the strip the sun line hangs about 187 m overhead. The ground on the opposite side of the cylinder is the sky, 400 m away.
Section through the floor reports 01, 02 · M1-S-002
| Layer, outside to in | Thickness | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Regolith shield, stationary | 2.8–3 m | 4,500 kg/m² in sealed cells on the enclosure, does not spin |
| Clearance gap | to be designed | Thermal and deflection clearance between shield and rotor |
| Al-Li pressure hull | 125 mm | Screening thickness at 101.3 kPa with rim payload |
| Soil bed, Zones A and B | 0.30 m | Wet loam, 1,500 kg/m³; strip is built deck |
| Floor surface | r ≈ 199.6 m | 0.998 g |
Report 02 notes 0.30 m suits row crops but not deep-rooted trees; a 1 m berm system for orchards would triple the soil mass and needs coordination with the floor loading in report 01.
Land use plan for 1,000 residents
Plant and data halls stay off the floor, so the surface is homes, gardens, woods, water and farms. The plan puts 360 homes on the floor: 208 flats in 13 five-storey blocks with planted roofs round the four plazas, 127 cottages along the lanes of Zone A and the villages, and 25 estate houses in Zone B. At 2.8 people per home that houses the 1,000 residents at about 1,600 people per km², the density of a garden suburb, with more than half the floor left as open land.
| Use | Area (m²) | Share | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open land | ≈ 339,000 | 54% | Woods, meadows, commons and scattered trees: about 340 m² per resident |
| Private gardens | ≈ 120,000 | 19% | Hedged plots: cottages about 480 m², estates about 2,000 m², plus lawns round the blocks |
| Crops | ≈ 60,000 | 10% | Fields in Zone A, sized for the full diet of 1,000 people (report 02), plus orchards |
| Lanes and paths | ≈ 57,000 | 9% | About 17 km: 16 lanes end to end, the promenade, two ring lanes, four towpaths |
| Water | ≈ 30,000 | 5% | Two ring canals, the reservoir, the lake and two brooks |
| Plazas and buildings | ≈ 21,000 | 3% | Paved plazas and the footprints of blocks, civic buildings and barns |
Two ring canals, 6 m wide and 1.26 km round, follow the zone boundaries. The floor is an equipotential, so a canal at constant depth is level all the way round and needs no locks. Water held: canals about 18,000 t at 1.2 m deep, reservoir about 20,000 t, lake about 4,000 t. The total of about 42,000 t sits inside the 62,832 t allocated to lakes and tanks (report 01).
Sun line axis, 480 m
A luminous tube 25 m in diameter runs 480 m along the axis, stopping 10 m short of each dome. It carries piped sunlight from the collector at the +x end, with dimmable LEDs as backup for photoperiod, spectrum and fault tolerance (report 03). Standing on the floor, it appears as a bright line from horizon to horizon directly overhead. Gravity at its surface (r = 12.5 m) is 0.06 g.
Living on a curve Coriolis
Walking
Walking with the spin at 1.4 m/s adds 2ωv + v²/r = 0.63 m/s² to your weight, about 6 %; walking against it removes the same. Noticeable on the first day.
Climbing to the axis
Moving radially at 2 m/s produces a sideways Coriolis acceleration of 2ωv = 0.88 m/s², about 0.09 g. Elevator cars are guided for this.
Dropped objects
An object dropped from 1.5 m lands 12 cm antispinward of vertical. From 10 m, about 2.1 m. Thrown balls curve visibly.
ω = 0.2214 rad/s at 2.115 rpm. Coriolis acceleration a = 2ωv. Deflection for a drop of height h from rest: x ≈ (2/3)·ω·√(2h³/g).