Hello, it's me again.
I've just picked up the book Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke, and near the beginning (I don't think this counts as a spoiler unless you didn't read the back cover) the Endeavour lands on the end of a rotating cylinder (Rama.) The captain worries that Rama's centrifugal force will sling the ship off the side and into space.
My question is this: would that really happen? There was not yet any hard connexion between Endeavour and Rama other than the static friction between the landing struts and the surface. Is a soft contact like that enough to impart a centrifugal velocity?
I've just picked up the book Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke, and near the beginning (I don't think this counts as a spoiler unless you didn't read the back cover) the Endeavour lands on the end of a rotating cylinder (Rama.) The captain worries that Rama's centrifugal force will sling the ship off the side and into space.
My question is this: would that really happen? There was not yet any hard connexion between Endeavour and Rama other than the static friction between the landing struts and the surface. Is a soft contact like that enough to impart a centrifugal velocity?
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