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Mobile Suit Gundam: High Frontier

Life In The Universal Century


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Wheel

Another type of space colony was introduced in the “alternate universe” Gundam series, After Colony Gundam Wing and its three-volume OAV sequel Endless Waltz. The space colonies of Gundam Wing combine elements of the 1968 Space Wheel design from 2001: A Space Odyssey and the 1975 Stanford torus design from Space Settlements: A Design Study.

Like the 2001 Space Wheel, it features a square-cross-sectioned wheel with a large cylindrical hub connected by four cylindrical spokes. Like the Stanford torus, it is a true habitat—a space colony that is a home to its inhabitants, not just an outpost in space.

Interior

But, where the Space Wheel was a city in space and the Standford torus was a small island in space, this new design is, like those of the mainstream Gundam saga, a complete and independent city-state in space. The wheel-shaped colonies of Gundam Wing are 18 kilometers (11.2 miles) in diameter and four kilometers (2½ miles) in cross-section—about ten times the dimensions of the Stanford torus. They have a habitable area of 225 square kilometers (87 square miles) or 22,500 hectares (55,600 acres) supporting a population of one and a half million.

Duplex

The cylindrical hub is 18 kilometers long and 3.6 kilometers in diameter—almost exactly midway in size between the O’Neill “Island Two” and “Island Three” cylinders—and roughly the same area as the wheel. This cylinder is given over entirely to docking bays, industrial complexes and environmental systems for the residential wheel, however.

The pseudo-gravity in the cylinder is only 20% percent that of the wheel, so if the wheel has pseudo-gravity on par with that of the Earth, the pseudo-gravity in the cylinder will only be 6% higher than that of the Moon.

In a design unique to Gundam Wing, two colony wheels are often shown linked together at one end, not with relatively small cables or struts, but with a substantial (and presumably fixed and stationary) bridge-like structure that makes the paired colonies resemble a giant roller skate or bicycle!


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Last Update: 01 January 2008

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