I recently bought the book Into the Anthropocosmos by Ariel Ekblaw and was inspired by her self-assembling space stations. I wanted to explore what it feels like to be inside these space stations. Play with the physics of microgravity like the characters of Seveneves. Create artificial gravity and experience the Coriolis effect. So I started building in Blender and Unity. Here are my first two explorations.
I'm halfway through creating graspable objects inside the spinning stations so I can experience the Coriolis effect, where things might not fall straight down. Or throwing objects veer off course. Below are some renders from Blender showing the concept of creating an O'Neill cylinder by slowly building up paired habitats over time. These were the first objects I ever designed in Blender, so forgive the noise and crude modeling.
This video shows a more modular system that could be built up over time. This time there are no gaps between modules, wasting less material and space. Yes, I realize these are very simplistic notions for how you might create a space station, but I tend to learn by doing.
I'd love to create a VR tool by which anyone could piece together parts to design space stations, quickly jump inside and get a feel for the scale, and simulate micro + artificial gravity. There might not be a big need for this yet, but give it 2 years...