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Artificial gravity breaks free from science fiction
- Rerarom 7y agoI thought it was achieving gravity by means other than rotation :(
- mrob 7y agoAgreed. The title is misleading IMO. This isn't sci-fi, it's just a fancy amusement park ride. These things have been around for decades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitron
- Robotbeat 7y agoHey, rotation works. There was a NASA-funded NIAC proposal about using linear acceleration (oscillating up and down in an elevator) to do the same thing, but it's pretty strange compared to just using rotation.
- kbutler 7y agoCentrifugal and coriolis pseudo forces cause objects to act strangely in rotating frames. Also, in small-diameter rotations, the tidal forces can be very noticeable (differential acceleration on different parts of an object).
- Robotbeat 7y agoThat’s what this article is about: those (primarily psychosensory) effects are apparently able to be mitigated entirely with training.
- akshayB 7y agoI think there are still lot of technical challenges to design something like this for long space missions but the design needs lot of space and resulting structure can be enormous.
- inamberclad 7y agoI'm pretty annoyed that this article doesn't mention it, but the whole point of Prof. Clark's research is to find the human tolerance for rotation so that these structures can be made as small as possible. I suppose the news here is that his candidates made it to 17 rpm, which appears to be a new record.
- keyle 7y agoThis is cool and seen on many science fiction show. The engineer in my head wonders, how do you make the transition between various 'donuts' compartments and various levels without getting limbs chopped off? Only by the center via a tube?
- inamberclad 7y agoYeah, it'll likely be a central tube or slip ring of some kind. I think it's more likely that the entire spacecraft will be assembled in orbit and spun up there.
- Jedi72 7y agoturbolift
- burfog 7y agoYou don't need to transition unless you want a microgravity lab or possibly docking another spacecraft. Stopping is also an option, though debris and even furniture might float around. Picture a long truss connecting an office building to a nuclear reactor. It spins end over end. There are multiple ways to connect a non-rotating part at the middle. One way involves an air lock. Pass through that, shut the door, and then adjust the relative rotation. Another way involves a large and troublesome seal. I suspect this might best be done with ferrofluids to seal the gap. Accepting a bit of air loss is another option. If the gap is tiny, it might not be bad. It would just be part of the accepted loss, just like the loss from spacewalks. For docking, you could skip all that if you accept the complexity of docking with a spinning object. You could even dock away from the center if the rotation is slow enough.
- keyle 7y agoThanks for your elaborated response!
- inamberclad 7y agoAh yeah, professor Clark has been doing this for a few years. He's a cool dude and the whole BioAstro group is really top notch. I was very nearly a test subject in this experiment.
- byebyetech 7y agoThis headline should win the clickbait of the year award.
- carapace 7y agoFor shame colorado.edu, eh? I got actually angry for a minute.
- bayareanative 7y agoDon't let that go or you're condoning dishonesty.
- carapace 7y ago? I already let it go, but I still don't condone dishonesty.
- gibolt 7y agoHeadline breaks free from the gravitas of journalistic integrity
- slang800 7y agoThis isn't "artificial gravity", this is just a centrifuge, and those have been used for decades in High-G training. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-G_training https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-G_training
- StillBored 7y agoThis isn't artificial gravity, its just rotational force. The wikipedia article even suggests that the solution to motion sickness is slower rotation, achievable with larger diameters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotational_gravity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotational_gravity Says it takes a ~224M radius at 2 rpm to get earth gravity. Given the ISS is 108M wide seems pretty doable with current technology if we really wanted to. There is also a pretty interesting chart here https://ase.tufts.edu/cosmos/view_picture.asp?id=748 https://ase.tufts.edu/cosmos/view_picture.asp?id=748 about asteroid size vs rotational speed.
- bayareanative 7y agoThis title needs editing. It has nothing to do with gravity.
- legulere 7y agoFor space travel I really like the idea to accelerate (and after halfway decelerate) with 1g.
- igravious 7y agoWhy not use this on Earth to build more robust humans, might be an athletic training hack. Wouldn't you get the opposite of bone loss and muscle loss? So, increased bone and muscle density. Must be good for something. Might be tough on the cardiovascular system though. Oh, and "artificial gravity"? Please already.
- newnewpdro 7y agoWell that was disappointing
- dr_dshiv 7y agoDumb question: in deep space, how do you "know" that you are spinning?