"2001 A Space Odyssey" space station: Rotating or contra-rotating?

[DaveC426913]

The Earth is 12,800 km across and the lunar tides vary water height by a few meters. You'd have to do the calculations for a relatively close pass of the Sun (the mass is a lot more than the Moon, but you can't get so close as we are to the Moon).

The Cylindrical Sea is only 20km across - much smaller than the largest lakes, which do not experience tides to-speak-of. Someone needs to do some calcs (not 'it'!).

 

[Nik_2213]

A reminder that AC Clarke's memorably elegant 2001 docking sequence was a blatant 'Middle Finger' to his critics who'd said docking with a rotating space-station was 'impossible'.
Non-trivial, certainly, and needing those computer-assists to be sure, to be sure...

Also, perhaps, he did rather 'over-egg the pudding'.
A telescopic 'air-bridge' or tele-handler that allowed connection at a safe-to-breakaway distance, then hauled the 'secured' arrival indoors would have been wiser.
My 'Convention' tales call such 'Mantis Grapples'...

( I've never heard of mantids hunting in threes or fours, but... )