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So I have a lost colony ship that's been wandering space for "many many many" years. The entire crew of 500 is placed in hypersleep all those time.

I'm designing a colony ship(unfinished) for my story and originally planned for the crew-section in a rotating torus. enter image description here enter image description here

But thought that placing it there meant space-loss for more important ship areas and decided to transfer the the crew section as it's own standalone part of the ship. (Similar to the ISV Venture Star from Avatar). enter image description here

Then another thought went back in my mind, It's effects on our bodies for an extended period. Zero-gravity can have an impact on us even if you're sleeping. Things like shrinkage of muscles, deteriorating join function and bones decrease in mass.

Is it the best idea to place the cryo/hypersleep sections in a rotating hub after all? What scenarios are best that fit either configurations?

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    $\begingroup$ Asking for best without providing assessment criteria is too subjective for this site. $\endgroup$
    – sphennings
    Jul 30, 2022 at 8:27
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    $\begingroup$ Surely the point of "cryo/hypersleep" is that your crew can be stored for extended periods of time without serious side effects? If your meat-popsicles are still within their safe journey limit, they'd be fine. If they're past their best-before dates, then what happens to them depends on how long they've been in storage and the nature of your storage system, which you haven't actually described. $\endgroup$
    – Starfish Prime
    Jul 30, 2022 at 13:37

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Depending on the principles of your cryosleep, it probably doesn't matter.

The health effects of microgravity aren't direct physical effects as such. That is, if you have a bone and you just let it float in microgravity, it won't wither away of its own accord. Rather, these are metabolic effects - different bodily processes go to work based on hormone signals that you don't need e.g. muscles because they aren't being used, or bone density because it's not bearing any weight.

But the entire point of cryogenic hibernation (or any hibernation when you get right down to it) is that metabolic processes are slowed to the point of suspension. If your metabolism is shut off by cryohibernation, it can't make any ruinous decisions as a result of the weird microgravity environment you're found in.

You would want a gravity environment for people to convalesce when you thaw them out, if possible, but for the majority of the journey it shouldn't be important.

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The best design it's up to details that you don't give, so you have to sort it out by yourself.

In any case, prolonged inactivity like the one related to laying in bed for long times, like it happens for comatose patients, it's detrimental to the skeletal and muscular apparatus. By adding microgravity conditions you are doubling up on the deleterious effects, therefore placing the sleeping pods in a microgravity environment doesn't look like a very bright idea.

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Imaginary cryo/hypersleep technology can have any characteristics you want.

If bodies are frozen solid they don't waste muscle mass regardless of gravity.

For "many many many" years scenario it seems to make most sense unless it is important for your story that crew deteriorates over time. Every moving ship part becomes a hazard over "many many many" years.

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