Rotating wheel space station

A rotating wheel space station, or donut city or von Braun wheel, is a wheel-shaped space station. The wheel would be divided into compartments for living quarters, laboratories, and other facilities, and it would be powered by solar panels.

The concept of a von Braun wheel was first proposed by Wernher von Braun in the 1950s, as part of his vision for the future of human space exploration. He believed that such a station would be a stepping stone to the colonization of space.

Rotating around its axis creates an environment of artificial gravity. This is critical for space habitats but in early constructions it was used to experiment with artificial gravity for deep space missions under full g in centrifuge sleeping quarters following the same approach.