To be honest, I had not considered procession because of a certain function I intend to include in the design - I should have the next article out this weekend.
But as to counterrotating rings, there's two reasons I would be strongly against it. First of all, for a 1km-radius circular station to rotate quickly enough to provide about 1g of gravity, the velocity of the outer edge would be approximately 100m/s - that's about 224 mph.
One thing we learn in the Navy is "nothing is sailor proof" - meaning, if it can be screwed up or broken, it *will* get screwed up or broken. If any object - a wrench, a bottle of water, or a human body - was somehow ejected from one ring, it could meet the other ring at a closing speed of up to 446 mph. In space, that's not good. Of course it's highly unlikely that such could happen at the edge, for the tangent would carry it away from the station - but we're not dealing just the edge, but also the hundreds of wires that are part of the design - if one breaks, it *can* float over to the other ring (unless there's more than 1km distance between the rings)...and that would be potentially catastrophic for the entire station.
What's more, with two counterrotating rings, the design of the connecting hub becomes problematic. Simplicity and multiple redundancies are crucial for long-term survival of a space station, and connecting two counterrotating hubs and keeping them *perfectly* level with each other adds a prodigious degree of mechanical complexity...and if it screws up just once, again, catastrophe for the entire structure.
But again, I think the design I have will not only only compensate for procession, but also to maintain orbit and - if necessary - to adjust to a higher orbit...even out to one of the LaGrange points.
Don't get me wrong - I am sincerely appreciative of the idea and the constructive criticism. I've lived long enough to be grateful to be proven wrong about things, and if you don't mind, I'd like to include your idea (with credit to you, of course) and my response to it, perhaps in the upcoming article or the one afterwards. :)
