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Comment by hbrav | Hacker News Reader

Two things that came to mind:

1. Would the Coriolis force tend to set up a big overturning cell in that swimming pool? i.e. there would be circulation along the top, down one end, back along the bottom, and up the other side?

2. Is this some kind of suicide cruise? They just seem to head out into interstellar space at the end. The delta-V to return to Earth would be incredible. And no more gravity assists once you're past the major planets.

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There would be some amount of vertical circulation due to Coriolis with the pool running parallel to the spinward-antispinward axis, yes. You could figure out exactly how much because he gives the dimensions of the ship, rotation speed, and we can estimate the size of the pool, but that would be beyond my meagre mathematical abilities.

Well, if they could launch and assemble all that ship & luxury, they presumably have the drive technology to match.

That second ship that docs might very well be something like antimatter propulsion tug or even something wilder like nuclear salt water rocket. Probably nothing nuclear/electric as no serious radiators for all the waste heat such a system would generate can be seen.

By symmetry, you wouldn't expect circulation in a pool oriented perpendicular to the station's rotation. The Coriolis effect happens in the northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere, but not along the equator.

No horizontal circulation, sure, but the Coriolis effect can still cause vertical circulation.

Check out these panels from one of my favorite web-comics (they do their research):

https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2013-09-15

https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2013-09-16

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