Cheapest way to make artificial gravity?

[Urge]

I made this little drawing, for how the cheapest form of artificial gravity possible to make might look. It only has gravity for two people at a time, the rest will stay in the bigger weightless module when its not their time to be in the rotating gravity-buckets. I could off course have made the whole thing rotate, but I thought it might be easier on the engine to just rotate the buckets. To make the most out of the time there, the buckets should be used for exersices and such.

Is NASA thinking about stuff like this for the trip to Mars, the next orbital station, or something else?

 

[diankra]

Ok, here's the (first few) problems:
The central module will be spinning, which is enough to mess up any microgravity experiments which might be the point of the station.
Unless you have an exceptional insulation and radiator system, current spacecraft need to be put into a thermal control roll, which won't be compatible with the 'gravity' rotate.
(I realise that these two points slightly contradict each other: careful scheduling of when each is done is the current answer)

 

[Christopher]

I like the cheap-and-simple centrifuge substitute from Arthur C. Clarke's Imperial Earth: a cylindrical bike track. You pedal around it, and the faster you go, the higher the centrifugal gravity you feel.

 

[Urge]

Ok, here's the (first few) problems:
The central module will be spinning, which is enough to mess up any microgravity experiments which might be the point of the station. QUOTE]

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My plan was that the spinning one-person buckets will cancel out each others pull, so that the central module stays put. That`s why I made two of them.

 

[Kain]

Would a spinning inner culindical room inside the spaceship be a bad idea? I think it would have the same effect, but I don't know if it is worth the cost...

 

[trekkiedane]

Is NASA thinking about stuff like this for the trip to Mars, the next orbital station, or something else?

It's one of those ideas that keep coming up.

A 1989 NASA artist’s concept of a vehicle which could provide an artificial-gravity environment for Mars exploration crews. The piloted vehicle rotates around the axis that contains the solar panels. Levels of artificial gravity vary according to the tether length and the rate at which the vehicle spans.

A more inexpensive version also is very popular with the space travel enthusiasts:

Using the upper stage of the rocket as a counterweight and securing it to the crewed part of the Mars-ship with a tether is one of those ideas I find brilliant.

 

[Christopher]

My plan was that the spinning one-person buckets will cancel out each others pull, so that the central module stays put.

Not with that configuration, they won't. The weight distribution is asymmetrical. That thing would wobble like crazy and tear itself apart. You've got two separate rotational hubs which are both offset from the center of mass, forcing the two modules to rotate in planes that are diagonal with respect to the line connecting them to the center of mass. That's just not a stable configuration. You need a more symmetrical design, something where the line connecting the modules to the center of mass is within the plane of rotation, as in trekkiedane's illustrations.

 

[sojourner]

^I was gonna say the same thing till I got to Christopher's post. The OP's idea won't work as shown.

 

[JustAFriend]

The idea of spinning habitats has been around since the 1950s at least.

 

[trekkiedane]

Here's the video I was going to post, but couldn't find, in my earlier post: The Mars Direct video from The Mars Society:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ4KIB4GqEA[/yt]​

FRAK! -how 'easy' doesn't that look!

I'd, of course, like to see it happen -but for myself I could settle for this concept becoming a 'hard-SciFi'-series on TV...

 

[Trekker4747]

One could argue that this isn't "gravity."

 

[Christopher]

Well, of course it isn't gravitation in the sense of the actual fundamental interaction. That's why it's called "artificial." It's acceleration to produce a sense of weight -- to give the same effect as gravity with a different cause.

Of course, since "gravity" is from the Latin for "heaviness," it's arguably valid to use the term "gravity" for anything that produces weight, even if it isn't gravitation.

Or, you could cite Einstein's Equivalence Principle, that the effects of gravitation and accelerated motion are interchangeable.

 

[trekkiedane]

One could argue that this isn't "gravity."

True.

But it does work against (micro- or non-)gravitational illness in astronauts in such vehicles -hence the word 'artificial'.



If I might (jokingly) add: There's a bit of a lack of gravitas in your post.

ETA: sorry, I should have updated more frequently.

 

[sojourner]

One could argue that this isn't "gravity."

We have. In other threads.

 

[FordSVT]

Let him be, sojourner, we know how cranky Trekker can get if he doesn't state the obvious as if it were original at least once a day.

 

[scotpens]

Well, of course it isn't gravitation in the sense of the actual fundamental interaction. That's why it's called "artificial." It's acceleration to produce a sense of weight -- to give the same effect as gravity with a different cause.

Of course, since "gravity" is from the Latin for "heaviness," it's arguably valid to use the term "gravity" for anything that produces weight, even if it isn't gravitation.

Or, you could cite Einstein's Equivalence Principle, that the effects of gravitation and accelerated motion are interchangeable.

Or, in other words: To-may-to, to-mah-to.

As JustAFriend pointed out upthread, the idea of spinning habitats or space wheels has been around for a long time. While it's certainly possible to design and build such a structure, we probably won't see huge, wheel-shaped space stations for many decades, if they ever get built at all. They're simply not necessary. In the 1950s, it was thought that crews living in space for long periods would need some form of “gravity” just to function normally. We know now that humans can function perfectly well for months at a time in a weightless environment. The debilitating effects of long-term weightlessness -- muscular atrophy, cardiovascular degeneration, loss of bone mass -- can be countered with regular exercise. In fact, I believe the current International Space Station has a gym with exercise equipment designed to work in zero-g.

 

[Deckerd]

They also have fabby new pressure suits to imitate atmospheric pressure. It isn't as rosy as you paint it though. The long-term astronauts take about a year to recover and their bone density loss remains a serious problem.

 

[JarodRussell]

Well, of course it isn't gravitation in the sense of the actual fundamental interaction. That's why it's called "artificial." It's acceleration to produce a sense of weight -- to give the same effect as gravity with a different cause.

Of course, since "gravity" is from the Latin for "heaviness," it's arguably valid to use the term "gravity" for anything that produces weight, even if it isn't gravitation.

Or, you could cite Einstein's Equivalence Principle, that the effects of gravitation and accelerated motion are interchangeable.

So couldn't they create artificial gravity for e.g. a Mars mission during the acceleration and deceleration phase? They fire the engines and get pressed to the "back wall" of the ship.

 

[Christopher]

While it's certainly possible to design and build such a structure, we probably won't see huge, wheel-shaped space stations for many decades, if they ever get built at all. They're simply not necessary. In the 1950s, it was thought that crews living in space for long periods would need some form of “gravity” just to function normally. We know now that humans can function perfectly well for months at a time in a weightless environment. The debilitating effects of long-term weightlessness -- muscular atrophy, cardiovascular degeneration, loss of bone mass -- can be countered with regular exercise. In fact, I believe the current International Space Station has a gym with exercise equipment designed to work in zero-g.

That's not entirely true. I've heard about a recent study suggesting that microgravity conditions impair the functioning of stem cells, which could inhibit the body's ability to heal from injury and could be a dealbreaker for bearing children in space.

Besides, you're only talking about a duration of months. If humans are ever going to live in space on a permanent basis, to colonize space, then we'll need some form of simulated gravity.

 

[JarodRussell]

Would it make sense to accelerate a spaceship at 9.81 m/s² to a certain point and then again decelerate it with again -9.81 m/s² to simulate Earth's gravity for the crew during the entire flight?