Gravity differences on asteroid with an O'Neill cylinder

In my story there is something akin to an Island Three O'Neill cylinder buried vertically into the side of the asteroid Vesta. It is 5 miles across and 20 miles long. The station is buried but is spun up inside of a cylindrical shell carved out of the asteroid. The whole of Vesta does not need to be spun. The station is buried for two purposes: to protect from cosmic radiation and to give better access to the miners.

Vesta's gravity is about 0.25 m/s^2 which (I think) is around 0.03G. For things to feel like 1G inside, the cylinder should produce 0.9995G artificially.

Now, (if I'm doing the math right) using arctan(0.03/0.9995) the inside of the cylinder would feel like it has a 1.72° slope to it, which doesn't seem like much, but...

1. Would this feel like a hill? Would walking far surface-ward wear you out faster than? Could you throw a ball further "downhill" at this angle? Or would it not even feel any different?

2. Would it make sense to build terraces periodically to level things out?

3. Would this noticeably affect air pressure or water flow across the gradient of the cylinder?

I'm trying to feel out if this would even be worth mentioning my story, or if the effect is so negligible that it wouldn't.

posted over 6 years ago

Sam Washburn‭

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