Was just looking at a photograph of a jet, which had its tyres visible, and made me think… tyres do a pretty good job of holding pressure. Could you sensibly make a spacecraft in a similar way to a tyre?
Not tyres, exactly, but Bigelow Aerospace is planning inflatable space station modules made of vectran.
There’s really not a lot of pressure to hold. Normal sea level pressure is 14.7 PSI which allows for a normal mix of air to breathed. A space suit gets down to just above 4 PSI but the atmosphere is pure oxygen to make up for inefficiency in breathing such low pressure causes.
It wouldn’t make it very easy to bolt on all the exterior bits: solar panels, antennas, robot arms, engines, etc. You could have some balloons popping out here and there for extra space.
All of the pressurized spacecraft made so far are not greatly different from tires, nor is any other pressurized container I can think of. The only difference between a tire and a steel tank filled with compressed air is the degree of deformation in the material caused by the pressure differential. If you are referring to the maintenance of shape by pressure, a better comparison might be with balloons.
I recall proposals for inflatable, balloon like spacecraft going back at least 20 years.
Behold Echo, the satellite from 1960 that was really just a giant metallized Mylar balloon.
There has been a crapload of research into inflatable space structures and habitats.
Margaret Whiting presaged this development with her 1951 hit Good Morning Mister Echo.
Interior bits too, for that matter: life support equipment, experiments, consoles, storage lockers, etc.
And all the bits that connect the inside to the outside: airlocks, windows, plumbing, electrical connections, etc.
An inflatable structure is useful if you just want a huge empty pressurized compartment. So I guess it makes sense for space tourism. But if you want a spacecraft or space station filled with equipment, it’s probably easier to build the whole thing out of metal, and launch it with all the equipment already installed.
The Russians were able to accomplish the first spacewalk in part by using a very simple and lightweight inflatable airlock on the outside of their spacecraft.
airlocks, windows, plumbing, electrical connection. I can think of
Oh, just stick me on the rim, I’ll be fine.
Sure. As long as you build it in space and it stays in space. The problems are launch and - especially - atmospheric entry.
Actually, that is very simple; you build a space frame truss structure from lightweight aluminum or graphite rod inside the balloon that extends and locks into place when the balloon is inflated. As you are in free-fall, it doesn’t have to be capable of withstanding Earth surface gravity loads, just resilient enough to accept whatever working loads will be applied to it.
Except that you’re limited to the size and form-factor of your space launch vehicle. Skylab was about the largest practical single-launch station, otherwise you’re stuck with assembling modules in space, and the larger and heavier they are the more difficult they are to manipulate. If your module were just a flat disk that bolted to an interface and then inflated/expanded, it would be a lot easier to put in place.
None of these are quite like a tire, of course. They’re more balloon like. A modern radial tire (which I assume the o.p. is referring to) is in fact pretty rigid and can’t be compressed down. It gets most of its strength from the steel (or in some cases, Kevlar) belts. You could do something like this for a large spinning structure, and in fact I’ve proposed that instead of making the structure out of steel or aluminum it could be made of [POST=9514841]ice-matrix fiber wound reinforced composite[/POST].
Stranger
Space age Pykrete.