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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday July 07 2019, @04:56PM   Printer-friendly
from the not-so-merry-go-round dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4463

Artificial gravity breaks free from science fiction

Artificial gravity has long been the stuff of science fiction. Picture the wheel-shaped ships from films like 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Martian, imaginary craft that generate their own gravity by spinning around in space.

Now, a team from CU Boulder is working to make those out-there technologies a reality.

The researchers, led by aerospace engineer Torin Clark, can't mimic those Hollywood creations—yet. But they are imagining new ways to design revolving systems that might fit within a room of future space stations and even moon bases. Astronauts could crawl into these rooms for just a few hours a day to get their daily doses of gravity. Think spa treatments, but for the effects of weightlessness.

[...]"Astronauts experience bone loss, muscle loss, cardiovascular deconditioning and more in space. Today, there are a series of piecemeal countermeasures to overcome these issues," said Clark, an assistant professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences. "But artificial gravity is great because it can overcome all of them at once."

[...] In a series of recent studies, [they] set out to investigate whether queasiness is really the price of admission for artificial gravity. In other words, could astronauts train their bodies to tolerate the strain that comes from being spun around in circles like hamsters in a wheel?

The team began by recruiting a group of volunteers and tested them on the centrifuge across 10 sessions.

But unlike most earlier studies, the CU Boulder researchers took things slow. They first spun their subjects at just one rotation per minute, and only increased the speed once each recruit was no longer experiencing the cross-coupled illusion.

[...]The personalized approach worked. By the end of 10th session, the study subjects were all spinning comfortably, without feeling any illusion, at an average speed of about 17 rotations per minute. That's much faster than any previous research had been able to achieve. The group reported its results in June in the Journal of Vestibular Research.

Clark says that the study makes a strong case that artificial gravity could be a realistic option for the future of space travel.

"As far as we can tell, essentially anyone can adapt to this stimulus," he said.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 08 2019, @07:25AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 08 2019, @07:25AM (#864384)

    what's the radius required for 17RPM to generate 1G? I'm feeling lazy, but pretty sure it's gonna have to be bigger than a Gravitron.

    The following gives 3 metres for 17rpm: https://www.artificial-gravity.com/sw/SpinCalc/ [artificial-gravity.com]

    At a radius of 250-300m you can spin at a more leisurely 2 to 1.7 rpm. Note: the "cabin" will then be traveling at about 150-200kph. Existing space propulsion tech should still be able to recover a detached cabin that's flying off at 200kph.

    There are many bridges with cables about 300m long if not much longer and holding up loads that are much higher than what would be required for at least the first few tests.

    It makes for an interesting / frustrating architecture problem since half the ship will be basically inaccessible to the other half,

    You could have "elevators" to travel between the ends. Presumably with counterweights to help balance stuff. You could use a separate counterweight to balance out the differences between the passengers/loads and the main elevator counterweight.

    It would be a more useful tech to develop and spend resources on than wasting time and resources going to Mars.

    If we ever become a space faring species figuring out the minimum G required for humans and our favorite livestock to stay healthy will be something that will remain important for many generations.

    And figuring out those numbers before spending billions or even trillions to settle on Mars might be wiser, especially if it turns out that Mars G just isn't enough. It's a lot harder to increase the G on Mars than "in space".

  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 08 2019, @11:51AM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday July 08 2019, @11:51AM (#864424)

    You could have "elevators" to travel between the ends.

    You certainly could, have virtually anything that's ever been dreamed up on the big screen or in most novels.

    The first such ship (which hasn't even been seriously proposed, much less built) should probably stick to something simple and proof of concept, like the current lightsail.

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