What is The Bishop Ring?

The Bishop Ring- Ring shaped rotating habitat

Image from: Steve Bowers

Have you ever thought of living in a ring-like habitat ? What would it be like to be farther from the Sun or near the Asteroid belt? In the Information Age, Forrest Bishop of the Institute of Atomic-Scale Engineering proposed a ring-like hypothetical rotating, open ended space habitat which is named after him only, the Bishop Ring.

The model of the habitat proposed by Forrest Bishop was 1000 km in radius and about 500 km in width, and is smaller in size when compared to the Niven Ring. Another dimensions would also be possible for this habitat. This giant rotating orbital habitat meant to be built of woven diamondoid or bucky fibre cable. 

The size of rotating habitats could be increased if these carbon nanotube buy fibre cables could be rapidly manufactured by the means of nanofacturing techniques. The largest rotating habitats possible to be made using these cables can be equal to or even more than India or Argentina in respect of radius, depending on the mass of landscape included. Keeping the safety measures in mind these rings are kept smaller. The habitat orbits about a star or planet instead of being centered around a star, resulting in much smaller diameter. Artificial gravity is created (or produced) by the spinning movement of the rings, using centrifugal force, and would not need to be enclosed similarly as other spinning space habitats. The habitat could be built without a roof, with the atmosphere retained by artificial gravity and atmosphere retention walls approximately 200 km in height. A natural night and day cycle could be achieved by tilting its orbit , or illumination could be achieved using mirrors or an artificial sun at its center, and to reflect sunlight onto the inner rim, the orientation of the habitat with its axis of rotation would be perpendicular to the plane of its orbit, with either an arrangement of mirrors or an artificial light source in the middle, powered by solar panels on the outer rim and also solar power satellites. For the placement of the habitat in the space Forrest Bishop considered a possible positions, viz., much more distant Sun-Earth, positions closer to the sun, and positions in the asteroid belt or beyond it were also considered.