USAAAO — 2025 First Round

A cylindrical space station rotating about its primary axis could create artificial “spin gravity,” allowing people to live on the inner surface of the cylinder. If the space station is too small, inhabitants might experience unwanted effects of being in a rotating reference frame, such as the Coriolis “force” on moving objects: F = −2m(ω × v), where ω is the angular velocity vector of the space station and v is the velocity of the object in the rotating reference frame. For a space station with spin gravity equal to Earth’s gravity, what is the minimum radius needed so that a person walking at 1 m/s in any direction experiences negligible Coriolis force (< 1% of Earth’s gravity)?