Posted on 11/26/2016 8:21:49 AM PST by BenLurkin
In the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick’s spacecraft spins through the solar system like a giant, futuristic ferris wheel. The rotating craft has a suitably epic quality and, through the centripetal force, conveniently explains why there appears to be gravity inside the spaceship.
In real life future astronauts may have to settle for a slightly less cinematic form of artificial gravity, however. Space scientists working on the problem have developed a large vacuum cleaner-like device that seals around the astronaut’s waist, creating the impression of weight on the lower body through a powerful suction force.
Alan Hargens, an orthopaedic surgeon at the University of California, San Diego who helped develop the lower body negative pressure (LBNP) device, describes it as “an early form of artificial gravity”.
“A centrifuge is probably the best thing we could give the astronauts, but it’s very expensive and there are also some safety issues with having a rotating device on a spacecraft,” he said. “This device works like a vacuum cleaner, so the person can exercise at their normal body weight.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Yup. Radiation. Even around certain planets. Jupiter comes to mind.
“To give the feeling of gravity, wouldn’t the spin have to steadily accelerate?”
No. The object (in this case, person) does require constant (or at least continuous) acceleration, but the “spin” does not need to accelerate.
Acceleration is change in velocity (not merely speed). So spin IS constant acceleration even when the speed of the spin remains constant. (In this case the change of velocity is in direction rather than speed.)
A person standing on the inner surface of a spinning space ship IS accelerating toward the center of the spin. The speed of the motion is constant, so the person will not “feel” that motion.
That person will, however, feel the pull of artificial gravity away from the axis of rotation due to centrifugal force caused by the inertia of the person’s moving body.
Yes.
People.
Americans specifically.
"Those who say a thing is impossible should not interrupt those who are doing it..."
“if you throw an object against the rotation, it will lose the benefits of the cent force and is thrown with enough force -10m/sec to counter the 10 m/sec approximation of gravity, it will lose weight and hover as the drum turns around it.”
That’s sort of true but, practically speaking, the concept works.
Your example is similar to saying that if a space ship accelerated at a constant 1G force, a person could fall off of the edge or would get left behind if they went outside.
In the example given, a person would not just get knocked into a weightless state. Yes, they could move in an unusual trajectory, and this would have to adapted to.
For example, when Dave is running on the ship, if he were to leap into the air, he would jump either much further or a much shorter distance, depending on the direction in which he jumped.
Balance would probably be an issue also. When your legs and arms move (while running) they are going to get pulled in weird, wobbly directions. It’s sort of like when a spinning top starts to slow down and wobbles before it falls. You would swing an arm forward and you would feel it pull left. And then when you brought it back, it would veer right.
But this probably would not affect things like blood flow because these motions are so tiny. Bottom line is that spinning is a fairly decent way to create artificial gravity in space. To me it would make sense to at least have part of a space craft designed to do this. With magnetic bearings it would require very minimal amounts of energy to keep the spin at a constant speed.
Humans were designed to live in gravity, and this makes manned space travel much more feasible.
hmmm...i always thought that if you were on a ship going at a fixed rate and stepped outside and lost your tether, you would still have that linear momentum, and would keep pace with the ship, since there would be no drag to slow you down.
a double hull filled with water would be very difficult to control. the water would slosh around, etc..
um...that would be dave bowman in discovery
“I always thought that if you were on a ship going at a fixed rate and stepped outside and lost your tether, you would still have that linear momentum, and would keep pace with the ship, since there would be no drag to slow you down.”
True, if the ship is not accelerating. If it is accelerating, you would be left behind.
Likewise, the scenario of a person moving within a centrifuge would not just enter a state of “weightlessness” relative to the rotating system from a slight bump. It would take a large force to do this. And it really would not make a difference because it would be easy to rejoin the artificial gravity within a closed system.
Baffles/bladders. No sloshing unless ship was vibrating - which is why there are baffles. In case you do not remember, these ships (Orion Class) were to be crewed by 200 - the smallest interplanetary version, while the interstellar version would hold thousands.
In my 40 years in DoD engineering, I could number the Leftist techs, designers and engineers on one hand. Even then, most would vote democrat only because they wanted to avoid family arguments at Christmas.
Logic and Leftism are mutually exclusive.
Um, probably not.
The nervous system isrelatively speaking, insensitive to rad exposures.
IF you had enough exposure to affect the Central Nervous System to the point of brain damage, the much more sensitive organs of your body would be busy dying first.
This is nothing but fear-propoganda.
I read your headline as Artificial Gravy. I tried to imagine what that could be.................then I read it again and realized I was hungry.
So they are going to send Monica Lewinski and friends along with the Astronauts ?!?
Not a bad plan.
Not to mention the decaying educational system simply will not result in effective missions to Mars.
my solution would be to freeze the water ;-)
Well the ship is in deep space so freezing comes easy - some would have to be defrosted for use, of course, thus the baffles - but that is just another way to dissipate heat, else there is always the nuclear reactor ...
Nope, we haven’t even begun to build the foundation of what it will take to send humans to Mars.
If we do send people to Mars it will be another 50 years.
Then again, perhaps we are too harsh on NASA’s capabilities. The record of the ISS is really quite encouraging. Yes, rescue or evacuation on the “standby” Soyuz, from the ISS is practical, and rescue from a Mars mission is not, in most scenarios. And yes, there have been a number of “interesting” incidents and failures. But, the first long term crew went up to the ISS in 2000, and there has been no crisis, yet, requiring a crew to return prematurely to Earth. That’s not even counting the earlier construction missions.
Obviously, any one mission to the ISS, any one stay by a crew, or even a year of operation, is a “cakewalk”, compared to a mission to Mars. An 18 year successful history (of the ISS) is quite impressive, though.
BTW, if one goes to the “List of spaceflight-related accidents and incidents” on Wikipedia, there is some really interesting information there, and on pages that article links to. It is a dangerous business...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_accidents_and_incidents
I was particularly unaware of NASA astronaut Robert L. Curbeam’s spacesuit being partially(?) covered in frozen ammonia up to 1” thick during an EVA. (See the link above and scroll down to STS-98 for more of the story.)
Another of many close calls was Russia’s Soyuz T-10a: Cosmonaut Vladimir Titov later claimed their 1st action after ignition of the escape rocket was to cut the cockpit voice recorder. The reason? “We were swearing”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_7K-ST_No._16L
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