Post #2686546
2026-05-18 20:27 UTC
The ISS already has issues with structural fatigue which seem to be worsened by thermal expansion. Having one side of your station red hot and another at room temperature is a big temperature differential and what faces the sun and heats up on one side of the orbit will be in shadow and cooling on the other side. And the bigger you make a physical system, the worse problems get.
I miss when I could cheer SpaceX launches on an iMac.
Replies (1)
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@gerikson@awful.systems 2026-05-19 08:26
yeah, I dunno much about space engineering but let’s say you use solar panel (which OP acknowledges is probably needed in much higher mass to simply power the stuff) to shadow the radiators, you’re looking at a hell of a large structure, with significant stresses as it orbits. Surely someone can vibecode a finite-element model of a simple construction and estimate both the mass and the forces involved?