[marsokod]

And the mechanical and thermal shocks it gets when it passes from the vacuum chamber to the atmosphere.

IMHO the centrifuge part is the easiest of their challenges.

[clnhlzmn]

That's what seems to me to be the biggest challenge too. Going from vacuum to 1 atm at 4000 mph has got to be quite a shock. Might as well just smash the thing into a wall.

[joezydeco]

And what is the inrush airspeed when you have that large of a vacuum?

Zero to Mach 5 or 6 just seems like an instantaneous disassembly manuever, both for the craft and the centrifuge itself. Did they find a way to suppress a sonic boom at the exit point?