Quote:Wait, what? The bearings are at the outer end of the sails, right? The ring and its pods are the only thing moving relative to the rest of the ship. Since the ring has to be balanced to be structurally viable, the position it's in has no bearing on the mass distribution of the ship - at which point, you can just bolt your reverse thrusters on port and starboard and, since they're inside the radius of the ring, they never interfere with it.
First of all, there has to be sufficient structural reinforcement to hold the ring to the hull during maneuvers. Secondly, when combat conditions may come up unexpectedly, we -cannot- have a moving structural member blocking use of our thrust units.
Referencing the same Atomic Rocket page as I did earlier, a moving gravity ring doesn't neccessarily inhibit the maneuvers of a ship, just makes them a bit wierd. Likewise, while mounting weapons on the outside of a moving ring is going to complicate your targeting, the degree therof is easily within the bounds of any computer, and there's no structural reason you can't. Even if you have to hang things off of the ring that you otherwise wouldn't, in order to get the mass ratio right for convenient maneuvering, then that still doesn't increase the ship's overall mass, the way your version does.
Erm. A bit like this. Red is engine, painfully pink is mission volume (sensors, weapons, etc.), sky blue is reaction mass bunkerage, and green is crew space. Data on the distribution of a submarine's internal volume comes from here.
Given that the habitation pods can be designed for optimum crew comfort, since the ship is no longer limited to an exact density, they're probably more effective living spaces than the old crew sections. Anyway, you can carry more than two if you like - again, just remember to keep it balanced. Also, who says we can't pare the crew size back?
If I've gotten my WAGs in the right neighborhood, they should have an internal pull of about half a gravity, a rotation rate of 3 RPM, and an overall diameter somewhere a bit short of, say, sixty-five meters.
Anyway, if these are strictly short-term vessels - two or three weeks - then there's absolutely no reason whatsoever why they should have a centrifuge at all. But, if their designers are also planning to accomodate independant cruising and such (which isn't out of the question - look at how much - or how little - of a VF's internal volume is devoted to reaction mass), then I don't think it makes any sense to spend any more mass than you have to on something that has no other function. Heck, you could mount the radar masts on the ring - you'd get the same coverage, you wouldn't need masts so long, and as a freebie, you can eventually sweep the entire sky with a single installation.
ETA: Whups! The bolt-on Valkyries sound good - perhaps put their dock cradles one on either side of either sail, where crew access has to run anyway?
Ja, -n
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
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