Electromagnetic gravity.

[Urge]

If the floor is a magnet, and you are wearing a suit with metall in it (This suit can perhaps also have a layer of something that protects the body against the magnetism, I have heard that it can cause cancer) then you can have gravity, cant you? In order to make sure that the magnetic force is the same from foot to head, the ceiling can be a magnet to, and both can push the metal downwards. Magnetism can be bad for computers and software offcourse, but it can be solved either by keeping the room with the computer magnet and gravity-free, or by insulation the computers with something that blocks the magnetic radiation.

To create gravity this way will require the crew to wear a sort of lightversion of a spacesuit all the way to their target and back - but it might still be better then zero-gravity. Magnetic boots is offcourse a less drastic solution, but it might not help completly against the process of muscle and boneloss, since nothing will drag you down while both feets are on the floor.

Anny reason for why this should not work? They should definitly think about it when going to Mars, or even back to the moon. If you are going to stay on the moon a long time, it might be good to have some extra gravitational pull. Food and non-metal objects will offcourse continue to bounce around in local gravity, but that can have its advantages - as long as the crew doesnt float.

Im planning to write a science fiction book that uses much more low-tech solutions then star-trek, so that why im asking so much, I dont realy have the knowledge needed to start the task - not yet annyway.

 

[Jadzia]

I imagine it would be expensive to take heavy duty magnets and inanimate lumps of metal up into space -- At least when you consider the fuel : payload ratios.

I don't think weightlessness of self is such an issue for the day to day tasks astronauts face. Past astronauts, like those on ISS/MIR have coped fine with weightlessness. Bone/muscle wastage is/can be managed with drugs and simple spring based exercise equipment.

 

[Urge]

Even though the people being up in space for a long time have recovered without permanent damage so far, i think NASA sees it as a real problem. From what I have heard, Earth-Mars-Earth will be a two or three year trip, while the record for time spent in weightlessness is one year at the moment.

Also, artificial "gravity" (such as my electromagnetic floor and metal suit-plan) is good for lazy people such as my self, and it will free time to do other, and perhaps more important things then pulling strings - such as forexample, science, observations, space-walks, taking pictures, and so on. After all, exercise is not the main intrest of the astronauts or those who pay for them, we go into space for other reasons.

So Im wondering if there are anny good reasons for it not to work, because if its realistic I can put it in my fictional space-craft.

 

[sojourner]

Couple of problems.
1) Magnetism is a strong force that has a very short range. If you think of gravity as a bowl that things roll toward the lowest point of, then magnetism would be a cup. You would not be gradually pulled in, but once you went over the lip of the cup you would rapidly fall to the bottom. Wearing a metallic body suit would have no more effect than just wearing metal shoes.
2)Magnetism attracts ferrous metals. You cannot redirect it to push metal away. Your confusing the interaction of magnets with the same poles rejecting each other. If you put it in the ceiling it will just attract the upper part of the body suit to the ceiling provided they get close enough. You might end up with someone getting there head/hands stuck to the ceiling.

If your going to use magnets at all, put the magnets in the shoes and have your floors/ bulkheads metal. It saves on the price of hauling large magnets to orbit and would work just as well. You also wouldn't need to worry so much about special rooms for computers.

But.... If your going to go that far, you might as well use Velcro boots and line the floors of your ship with velcro backing. Same results but even lighter and cheaper than magnets/metal. See the movie "2001" for a good example of this. Particularly the Pan Am spaceliner scene and any scenes in the pod bay.

 

[Urge]

Hmhm... I think I will keep the idea annyway. MY electromagnets will be of a new and improved type that is capable of distributing its down-pull evenly from floor to ceiling, so that you have perfect gravity as long as you are wearing the correct suit (Everyone needs their own suit that gives them approximily the same downpull when standing on the electromagnetic floor as their normal weight in one real G)

Perhaps the electromagnetic waves can be transformed by passing through some sort of energyshield one the way up to the living-quarters......

 

[sojourner]

You could do that, but it goes against the reader's knowledge of how magnets work. Magnetism is a known physical force. You cannot make it "new and improved". It does what it does. "New and improved" magnets can only be made stronger per mass. To change the "slope" of magnetic pull you would have to change (to paraphrase Q) the magnetic constant of the universe. Better to use a made up technology that doesn't break known physical laws such as gravity plating. Your readers will be more forgiving of gravity plating as an unknown technology. If you want to keep a more hard science feel to the story like if is set in a near future setting, try to use a method we already know works today.

If you want to write good science fiction don't start off with bad science.

 

[JustAFriend]

If the floor is a magnet, and you are wearing a suit with metall in it (This suit can perhaps also have a layer of something that protects the body against the magnetism, I have heard that it can cause cancer)

Magnets != (does not equal) gravity

Magnets do not cause cancer.

If you want a cheap, low-tech solution, go back and watch the Pan-Am Shuttle and moonship flight stewardesses in the 1968 production of "2001"... they use slippers with Velcro....

 

[Jadzia]

If you want a cheap, low-tech solution, go back and watch the Pan-Am Shuttle and moonship flight stewardesses in the 1968 production of "2001"... they use slippers with Velcro....

I think part of the motivation was to reduce bone/muscle wastage on long space flights. Velcro would hold you to the floor in some awkward semi-floaty fashion, but your legs/torso wouldn't be under any strain. So it doesn't address the problem.

The body would need to be put under longitudinal compression, perhaps applying a 100lb force between the feet and the hips, using bungee cord or something, and another 50lb force between the hips and the shoulders. Add the velcro slippers too if you like

 

[Urge]

Im sure that I can find a good "techno-babble" solution to the problem if needed (if I go for the transforming energy-shield thing, it can be something realy complex that sounds okay) or the magnet can just be so powerfull that it has a long radius, so long that its distributed evenly accross the two or three meters from floor to ceiling, and gets more dense lower down. The alternative solution proposed, with the strings and the velcro-shoes becomes to dorky, to un-cool for my spaceship:-)

Wouldnt the radius (and the even distribution with it) of the magnet increase with increased power?

 

[sojourner]

Not in the way you think. If it was powerful enough to have that range then the crew would not be strong enough to lift their feet off of it. Remember the bowl and cup analogy? You never get a bowl shaped field no matter the strength. You just end up with a cup too large to get out of.

 

[Urge]

If I have to drop the suit-plan (The nice thing about that one, is that it wouldnt involve anny rotating parts, and it would allow the crew to switch beetween gravity and non-gravity easy) I think I will have to go with centrifugal-force. A cheap way of doing it (my spaceship will be a modest and small one) is to have the living-section suspended from the main section (where the engines are, where they store life-support systems, have storageroom for spare-parts, grows food and all that) by a long cable, so that the living-section can boost itself around, and making the whole ship rotate around itself, that way making artificial gravity for itself without having to form a large donut all the way around the midle-section.

This is something NASA and the rest of the world (If we want to go to Mars, I think it would be best if the european spaceagency, NASA, the russians and the chinease should all work together, poll its resources and split the bill) should think about. Forming a large rotating donut with people in it might be a bit to large for us right now, but a smaller box suspended from a wire with a rotating engine-compartment and storage-room shouldnt be impossible.

Actualy, I wonder why they didnt do this when they made ISS - it sounds so easy.

 

[backstept]

the best method for artificial gravity that we could achieve right now is to build a spacecraft with a centrifuge

[edit] ugh . . . that was a horrible sentence

The best method for artificial gravity that is possible with today's technology is the centrifuge.

that's better

 

[sojourner]

Actually, yes, there have been several designs using cables and pods. Your no where near the first to think of it. It's a good idea.

As for the ISS, they wanted a microgravity environment with minimal vibration for experiments. Almost any kind of centrifugal gravity setup is going to spoil that.

 

[Urge]

But I have still not given completly up on the electromagnetism-suit idea. If I have a very strong electromagnet that is capable of giving even, but still way to much "G-force" on those wearing metall-suits within a 2,5 - 3,0 meter tall enviroment above the magnet, it should be possible to have some sort of special-layer in the floor that weakens the field, so that only one electromagnetic G remains, something that only lets a part of the the charged electrons (?) that causes the downpull to get through. Something that blocks electromagnetism, but have lots of microscopic holes in it. Then the electrons who get through will remain powerfull enough to keep the large radius, but be less dense, and have less downpull..... Perhaps.

Hmm. I might be way over my head here.... I think I should buy and read "physics for dummies" before I start on my book-project. Aha! Found it as a E-book on piratesbay. Through Iron will, and long studies I will suceed in making a good "techno-babble" solution that will make my electromagnetic gravity work!

 

[Pavonis]

Is your "electromagnetic gravity" device necessary to the plot of the story you want to tell? Is gravity necessary to the plot at all?

 

[Argus Skyhawk]

Not in the way you think. If it was powerful enough to have that range then the crew would not be strong enough to lift their feet off of it. Remember the bowl and cup analogy? You never get a bowl shaped field no matter the strength. You just end up with a cup too large to get out of.

I'm sure that is true if the magnet is located in the floor, but what if it were located say, 20 or 50 meters below the floor? When the suit-wearers are so far away from the source of the magnetism, might it feel to them as though the magnetic force was nearly evenly distributed across their bodies? Of course, a set-up like that would be problematic for other reasons, such as the fact that the ship would have to be huge and the magnet extremely strong.

Anyway, for the heck of it I tried brainstorming variations on Urge's magnetic suits, and I came up with a (probably extremely inefficient) suggestion: How about if the floor was a ferrous metal but not a magnet, yet the suit itself was filled with thousands of tiny electromagnets, each attached to sensors that determined how far they were from the floor? The farther each magnet was from the floor, the stronger it would pull, so that the astronaut would feel a downward force on his arms and mid-section as strong as on his feet.

I suppose then one would have a problem with the magnets attracting and repelling eachother. Grumble grumble.

 

[sojourner]

Magnets are a strong force over a short range. As opposed to gravity which is a weak force over a long range. It's very hard to get one to simulate the other.

It's like trying to simulate the properties of rock using jello. You could do it with difficulty, but why not just use cement?

 

[Urge]

Nope, its not important for the plot. Its just a cool gadget for the spaceship. Also, it would make the ship more flexible then having centrifugal gravity because the living-section doesnt have to be towed into the center when the ship needes to change direction or momentum, and then be pushed out again.

The idea with the inteligent suit that monitor distance from the metal-floor for each suit-magnet is actualy good. As long as all the magnets are either negativly or positivly charged, they wont attract each other - will they?

The suit-magnets doesnt have to be very small either. twenty or thirty placed on strategic places on the suit should give a gravity-like downpull. Even though the suits will be expensive, it might be cheaper then having a electromagnetic floor.... Hmhm - I will think about that one.

 

[deck5]

Hmhm... I think I will keep the idea annyway. MY electromagnets will be of a new and improved type that is capable of distributing its down-pull evenly from floor to ceiling

You mean, a completely imaginary, against-all-laws-of-physics, ridiculous kind of magnet. You may as well just say the ship in your story has artificial gravity, and leave it at that.

 

[Jadzia]

Hmhm... I think I will keep the idea annyway. MY electromagnets will be of a new and improved type that is capable of distributing its down-pull evenly from floor to ceiling

You mean, a completely imaginary, against-all-laws-of-physics, ridiculous kind of magnet. You may as well just say the ship in your story has artificial gravity, and leave it at that.

Urge, have you considered magnetic monopoles? They're only theoretical at the moment, and might but might not be possible. If you had two plates in your ship, one in the floor, and one in the ceiling loaded with equal and opposite magnetic charges, it would create an evenly distributed magnetic field between them.

No need for fictitious 'new-and-improved' electromagnets.