from the I'm-not-lazy,-I'm-doing-research-for-NASA dept.
A 60 day bed rest study designed to determine the potential effects of space flight and artificial gravity starts Monday, March 25th in Cologne, Germany. The experiment itself is termed the "Artificial Gravity Bedrest Study" according to officials in Germany.
Study participants will be prone for 60 days at a 6 degree angle (heads below feet). They will also periodically be spun up in a centrifuge to force blood back to the extremities in hopes of showing how artificial gravity, such as might be experienced in a rotating ship or space station, might help to keep astronauts healthy.
Bed rest is a common research tool in the human-spaceflight community; it can induce muscle atrophy and loss of bone density, just as prolonged stays in microgravity can.
The study is intended to help ESA and NASA better prepare for crewed missions to the moon, Mars, and elsewhere.
Researchers will perform a variety of experiments during the study; they'll measure participants' cardiovascular and cognitive performance, balance and muscle strength, among other factors.
Just throw in a good set of VR googles.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @02:08AM
At age 30 I broke a small bone in one ankle (freak accident, direct blow to the ankle). It was broken in place, vertically through a concave joint face and the crack would open up if I put any weight on that leg. Doctors orders were 10 weeks with no weight bearing on that leg -- so I was on crutches for ~70 days. Back in the 1980s no one thought to suggest that I do any non-weight bearing exercise to maintain that leg, for example spinning on an exercycle with low resistance.
It took about a year to regain muscle, tendon and ligament strength in that leg once I started walking normally again. At first I had to tape my ankle (many layers) to support it from collapsing to one side.
I hope that the participants in this study are going to be paid for the total time of the experiment including recovering the strength they had before all the bed rest.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @02:42AM (3 children)
It is pretty obvious how to build such a thing. Create a long truss with a nuclear reactor at one end and an office building at the other end. Wrap the office building in supplies and waste, serving the extra purpose of shielding. Make the truss long enough that walking around in the office building doesn't cause much change in the angle of the acceleration vector; this is needed to avoid nausea and accidents. Attach a zero-g lab and docking port at the center of gravity of the whole system. Connect all three components (building, lab, reactor) with both pressurized and pressurized access paths, both hallway/ladder and elevator/train. (so 4 total) The connection to the lab goes through a fluid dynamic bearing with a ferrofluid to hold the air pressure.
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Monday March 25 2019, @07:54AM (2 children)
> Create a long truss with a nuclear reactor at one end and an office building at the other end. Wrap the office building in supplies and waste, serving the extra purpose of shielding.
Space framers ftw! Nail the truss good then call-in all other trades to finish the job :)
Yeah, I know it will work. Just have to align the rotational axis carefully with respect to the planet because once spinned the whole thing cannot re-orient easily. You know, some kind of propulsion is unavoidable, even if only for altitude corrections. And it cannot be attached anywhere but to the central "stationary" point.
Back on-topic: From Skylab#Orbital_operations [wikipedia.org]: "Astronauts also found that bending over in weightlessness to put on socks or tie shoelaces strained their stomach muscles."
Zero-gravity is no joke.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @12:04PM
> Zero-gravity is no joke.
From http://www.storymusgrave.com/journal.htm [storymusgrave.com] :
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @06:36PM
You could put thrusters at both ends, firing them at the same time for on-axis movement.
Off-axis movement is harder, but not by much. One method is to rotate the thrusters. More reasonably, have thrusters pointing in many directions and simply pulse them whenever they aim in the right direction.
Re-orientation has an energy cost, but isn't really that big of a deal. You wouldn't want to be making large changes all the time. The occasional large adjustment, or a continuous little correction, is fine.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @02:14PM (1 child)
Is that place safe yet or are immigrants still pack raping people at night [nbcnews.com]?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @11:25AM
That was a serious question