Welcome to Rana Station

Welcome to Rana Station

Where did Rana Station Come From?

The first of the XK9 “Bones” Trilogy, What’s Bred in the Bone, is now available on Amazon as a paperback or in Kindle format. It explores ideas I’ve been developing for a long time.

Its setting, Rana Station, is almost a character in its own right. That’s partially because of the culture, partially because of the communities, and partially because of the incessant need to grow food everywhere possible.

Origins of Rana Station

I chose the classic Stanford Torus as the basis for my design. But–like many sf authors–I adapted it.

Here's the original 1975 Don Davis painting of a Stanford Torus space habitat. It has a large mirror at an angle to the wheel part of the structure, to shine light into secondary mirrors. There's a central hub structure and what look like the spokes of a wheel connecting the outer ring to the center.
The Stanford Torus space habitat design: In this 1975 painting by Don Davis, we see the single stationary mirror that would capture solar energy and reflect light to the secondary mirrors around the single torus.

For one thing, there isn’t a single torus on Rana. It’s a series of eight tori. They counter-rotate for better balance and stability, linked by a long central “Hub.” It’s kind of like an axle linking the eight habitat wheels. The tori also are bigger than a Stanford Torus. I based them on tech first extrapolated for a Bishop Ring.

Grasping for a Visualization

I have tried numerous times and in numerous ways to visualize for myself how Rana would look on approach. The best way I’ve managed so far to approximate an exterior view is a “quick & dirty” extrapolation in Adobe Illustrator, using a PNG of a bicycle wheel with a transparent background. 

It’s still not right, because it doesn’t recreate the space docks and the manufacturing structures. But if you think of the spokes as symbolic of all the elevators from various parts of the 1-G habitat to the Hub, it does give a general idea of what the “wheels” would kinda look like.

Eight bicycle wheels in pairs (one pair is smaller in diameter than the other three pairs) are lined up along a central Hub, to approximate the eight wheels of Rana Station.
Admittedly, this is both quick and dirty. But I think it gives a general feel. The smaller wheels represent the ozzirikkians’ habitat wheels. Never met an ozzirikkian? You can change that! Read the book! You’ll meet several.

If you think this “wheel” structure looks familiar, that’s because it does. Ever since the Stanford Torus was introduced, it’s seemed to many the most earth-like, understandable, and workable of the space-colony habitat designs . . . at least, as far as movies and TV go.

This is an artist's conception of the space-based habitat in the movie "Elysium." It looks like a long strip of flat valley floor that curves upward the farther it is away from the viewer, until it disappears above the edge of the "sky" surface, which is some kind of mostly-clear looking window-like curving structure.
Interior concept art for the Elysium space station, 

We aren’t likely to be able to provide “artificial gravity” that works like magnetism and switches on or off. That violates laws of physics that we currently know. Therefore, the gravitation needs to be provided by centrifugal force. And the best way we know to do that is by building a rotating megastructure in space.

A Space Station Survey

I’ve created several posts about space station designs. I considered and studied each one in my “Space Station DIY” series. I was trying to figure out what kind of space station design I would use for the setting–but it also made great material for a series.

I considered  space stations/colonies in general, Dyson structures, Bernal spheres, and O’Neill Cylinders. But the torus seemed to me the most likely to provide a reliable 1-G environment that was comprehensible to terrestrial human brains. I liked it better, and I got to be the decider because it’s my story. 

I plan future posts about aspects of life inside those wheels. Those will include a look at some of the maps and 3D elevations I’ve been creating as paper sculpture. I have used them to help me more realistically understand, develop and describe the settings inside this world I’m creating. Stay tuned.

IMAGE CREDITS

Many thanks to Wikipedia for a good file of the painting by Don Davis  – NASA Ames Research Center (ID AC76-0525), of the original Stanford Torus, which is now in the Public Domain. To my chagrin, I can’t relocate the source of the PNG image I used to create my “quick & dirty” Rana Station visualization.  I apologize! I also owe thanks to Geeks of Doom, who provided the Elysium concept art. 

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