Japan Wants To Bring Artificial Gravity To the Moon (gizmodo.com) 104
"Researchers and engineers from Kyoto University and the Kajima Corporation have released their joint proposal for a three-pronged approach to sustainable human life on the Moon and beyond," reports Gizmodo. The first element involves "The Glass," which aims to bring simulated gravity to the Moon and Mars through centrifugal force. From the report: Gravity on the Moon and Mars is about 16.5% and 37.9% of that on Earth, respectively. Lunar Glass and Mars Glass could bridge that gap; they are massive, spinning cones that will use centrifugal force to simulate the effects of Earth's gravity. These spinning cones will have an approximate radius of 328 feet (100 meters) and height of 1,312 feet (400 meters), and will complete one rotation every 20 seconds, creating a 1g experience for those inside (1g being the gravity on Earth). The researchers are targeting the back half of the 21st century for the construction of Lunar Glass, which seems unreasonably optimistic given the apparent technological expertise required to pull this off.
The second element of the plan is the "core biome complex" for "relocating a reduced ecosystem to space," according to a Google-translated version of the press release. The core biome complex would exist within the Moon Glass/Mars Glass structure and it's where the human explorers would live, according to the proposal. The final element of the proposal is the "Hexagon Space Track," or Hexatrack, a high-speed transportation infrastructure that could connect Earth, Mars, and the Moon. Hexatrack will require at least three different stations, one on Mars's moon Phobos, one in Earth orbit, and one around the Moon.
The second element of the plan is the "core biome complex" for "relocating a reduced ecosystem to space," according to a Google-translated version of the press release. The core biome complex would exist within the Moon Glass/Mars Glass structure and it's where the human explorers would live, according to the proposal. The final element of the proposal is the "Hexagon Space Track," or Hexatrack, a high-speed transportation infrastructure that could connect Earth, Mars, and the Moon. Hexatrack will require at least three different stations, one on Mars's moon Phobos, one in Earth orbit, and one around the Moon.
Far fetched? (Score:1)
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looks perfectly feasible FF-XX, i'd play that game.
any ways why make it a cone, and not multiple cylinders rotating at same speed
why have it sticking up out of the surface and not inside
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Digging a hole is expensive. The large diameter helps reduce sensitivity to Coriolis.
That still doesn't mean this is the right approach, of course.
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i was thinking sub surface cylinder of uniform radius (miles wide)instead of cone, multiple cylinders stacked... in a magical redundant way so it never fails... until sepiroth makes his move and the end is neigh for our brave heroes to save the moon.
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The Moon is pretty far for a construction project, but just think of this a train on a steeply banked track. For a large lunar station make it a train 628 m long on a 100 m radius track going 30 m/s with magnetic levitation, The lunar surface supports the track. This spec creates 0.9 G but lunar gravity adds to it.
You would probably build this by digging a trench for the track, and have a bridge across the train-station for entry and exit at the hub.
Smaller stations are easier to do, but the principle remai
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This paper [archive.org] indicates that 2 RPM causes no problem from differential angular acceleration effects, but that people can adapt to 6-10 RPM. The train-station I describe above is 3 RPM. For much smaller stations, still built on the same model (magnetically levitated, supported by the lunar regolith) a compromise with lower G and higher RPM allows minimizing structure size. A 7 m radius station at the upper limit of 10 RPM would give 0.78 G, but it would be better not to push human adaptation that high I expect
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Or instead of a track, just suspend it off a central pole like those spinning "swing" rides at the amusement park.
It'd need to be a heck of a solid pole, but that's potentially less of a challenge than building a huge ring track across lunar regolith. Which seems to be mostly sand and dust, with none of the organic material that binds it together into more solid dirt here on Earth.
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Re: Far fetched? (Score:2)
Re:Far fetched? (Score:5, Funny)
not to mention the shear size. Holy hell.
Yup, I've seen some big shears out in the wild, but this one takes the cake.
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The shears are to trim the fluff. What an _astonishing_ load of unstable nonsense. What could they possibly be planning to do with such large spinning structures? Contain the hand-waving involved in the design?
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The shearing refers to what happens when you try to step into the spinning part from a part that is still. It'll shear off your limbs.
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Sounds like when people step in, everything goes over their heads.
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I mean do the calculations. The amount of mass that much material spinning in a cone at 1g (and they fill the gaps with water?) not to mention the shear size. Holy hell. We're not even close to being able to construct something like that at all, let alone on the Moon.
It does seem to be a bit of an extreme structure without a very large population to required it. I've been a proponent of using centrifugal systems for low gravity habitats. This is only if it turns out to be necessary and that, for example, just wearing some weights doesn't solve the problems. We simply have no idea if that will or will not solve the problem. For example, for eye problems due to pressure issues, just some small amount of gravity might be enough to prevent those and the muscle wastage and b
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I agree the concept seems pretty over-the-top, especially the renders showing a huge lakes - though I suspect that's just a visual cue to the changing direction of "gravity" over the interior surface.
If you consider a smaller horizontal "slice" of the structure though, I think it actually has significant advantages over a train.
First - for scale: if we want 3rpm that means a ~94m radius, (590m circumference = 0.36 miles) and a speed of ~30 m/s (66mph)
So really, we're talking an area on par with a profession
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The torus structure you're describing, as you note yourself is not really all that different from a train with the cars fused together. I don't have any particular objection to that design versus the train. The one thing about a train is that you can start smaller (with a certain minimum amount of construction/material for the track) with just one car. Also, to be clear, that one car does not have to be as space restrictive as a regular train car. Long, thin structures are not an efficient use of materials
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The one thing about a train is that you can start smaller (with a certain minimum amount of construction/material for the track) with just one car
I think you may be underestimating the magnitude of construction that goes into laying track, especially across sand. And that's amplified many times when you're talking about a track that will have to withstand several times larger sideways stresses than downwards.
The track is likely to be a large fraction of the entire construction cost, at which point cheaping out on the part that's actually useful doesn't make much sense. You're already going to have at least a small town worth of people housed at nor
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I think you may be underestimating the magnitude of construction that goes into laying track, especially across sand. And that's amplified many times when you're talking about a track that will have to withstand several times larger sideways stresses than downwards.
Not really underestimating it. I was pretty specific from the start that I considered it a pretty major outlay of resources (construction materials/equipment/labor). Also, my preferred configuration is not built on sand, but on stone, with the tracks built onto a solid slope so that the forces when the train is running are "downwards" relative to the slope.
The track is likely to be a large fraction of the entire construction cost, at which point cheaping out on the part that's actually useful doesn't make much sense. You're already going to have at least a small town worth of people housed at normal lunar gravity before you can even consider either project - there's not much sense planning any structure with an initial phase that's too small to house all of them.
I have also been quite clear from the start that it's only worthwhile if you're going to have a big population. However, people and equipment are not lik
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I think I see a core disagreement:
people and equipment are not likely to arrive all at once.
Right. But a big slice of the people will already be there. To build something on this scale you're going to have to use local resources, which means you're going to need a well-established industrial base on location. Which in turn means that you almost certainly are going to already have at least a small army living on site without the benefit of enhanced gravity. Giving them space to live and stay healthy is the reason you're building the thing, along with lowering t
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I think I see a core disagreement:
people and equipment are not likely to arrive all at once.
Right. But a big slice of the people will already be there. To build something on this scale you're going to have to use local resources, which means you're going to need a well-established industrial base on location. Which in turn means that you almost certainly are going to already have at least a small army living on site without the benefit of enhanced gravity. Giving them space to live and stay healthy is the reason you're building the thing, along with lowering the health cost enough for a big growth spurt.
Or if not, it's almost certainly a resort for well-heeled tourists and/or an "escape ark" for even wealthier and more powerful individuals - neither of which would be well served by a claustrophobic train car habitat.
I think that definitely is a core disagreement. I personally think that this will not be necessary at all and that, in 1/6th G grown humans will be just fine with some adaptive measures like wearing weights at least part of the time, good nutrition and maybe some medications for bone health, etc. I don't know if that will be the case for gestating and growing humans though. The point though is that I'm looking at building this only from the perspective that it turns out that it's medically necessary for hum
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I think that definitely is a core disagreement.
You kinda missed the main point - that the people to inhabit it are already there.
For the rest - sure. It's quite possible1/6G will be enough to avoid some or all of the problems associated with weightlessness, aside from the muscle loss which can be (mostly) handled with weights and exercise. I'm certainly hoping so.
But for now we have absolutely zero evidence on which to base that conclusion, and this certainly seems to be based on the supposition that it's not. It's good to have backup plans, otherwise
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You kinda missed the main point - that the people to inhabit it are already there.
I didn't miss the point. I just wrote in the last comment that I'm dealing with a model where this is being set up as soon as colonists arrive because it's medically necessary and they can't live there long-term without it. I've been fairly clear about that from the start. How does that indicate that I "missed the point"? We're clearly starting from different premises here, but how is that missing the point from my perspective?
For the rest - sure. It's quite possible1/6G will be enough to avoid some or all of the problems associated with weightlessness, aside from the muscle loss which can be (mostly) handled with weights and exercise. I'm certainly hoping so.
But for now we have absolutely zero evidence on which to base that conclusion, and this certainly seems to be based on the supposition that it's not. It's good to have backup plans, otherwise the entire project completely stalls the first time one of your optimistic assumptions doesn't pan out.
Which is why we need to do a long-term simulated gravity test in orbit with some
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And I reiterate - it *can't* be set up as soon as people arrive, because you need a massive industrial base already in place before you can build it, and our robotic technology is nowhere close to doing the job on its own. If people can't live there safely for long periods without it, then they'll have to live there in shifts to develop the infrastructure.
As for "colonists" - that sort of implies a colony rather than an industrial outpost - a.k.a. a permanent, self-sustaining occupation with families that
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And I reiterate - it *can't* be set up as soon as people arrive, because you need a massive industrial base already in place before you can build it, and our robotic technology is nowhere close to doing the job on its own. If people can't live there safely for long periods without it, then they'll have to live there in shifts to develop the infrastructure.
And I suppose I'll re-iterate again that this is a bit pointless since we're clearly talking about different scenarios.
As for "colonists" - that sort of implies a colony rather than an industrial outpost - a.k.a. a permanent, self-sustaining occupation with families that never intend to return to Earth. That may happen eventually, but at present there are reasons to believe it's not viable. For starters there's a serious lack of vital bulk elements like carbon and hydrogen, at least on the surface. We'll need to find large deposits before even considering colonization. That's one of the biggest draws of a Mars colony over the moon - we know Mars definitely has all the elemental resources a permanent colony would require, with near limitless convenient access to the big three, CHO, required for growing biomass.
I should probably add here that I don't actually consider a moon colony particularly compelling compared to a Mars colony for the same reasons you state and others. I'm mostly in agreement there about the resources. Although I should note that there are some locations where we know that there actually are significant sources of water. Tiny compared to the overall size of the moon, but big e
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All right, I suppose my brain has been context-stuck on "scenarios where building a wineglass *might* make sense", given the article.
Which basically means there's an installed industrial base. Which will kind of be the whole point of early moon development - racing to become profitable and secure a first-mover advantage, so it works out nicely. I don't see many people looking to permanently live on the moon early on - at least not until either enough vital resources are located to secure the possibility of
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We don't know the "minimum long term safe gravity" for a human. We know that zero-g isn't it. Humans being variable, I suspect that the "minimum safe long term gravity" isn't uniform.
FWIW, I'm much more interested in structures that handle this in space than on the surface of planets/large moons. But some variation of this should work. Perhaps it won't even be needed on the Moon, though getting people to do sufficient calisthenics of the right kind to avoid wastage is probably impossible. If it is need
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We very much do have an idea that wearing weights won't be enough; hence this dizzying nonsense.
Really? Do you have a publication to point to where an experiment was done on humans in prolonged 1/6th gravity? Since humans have never built any spinning space structures for manned experiments and have never visited anywhere with such low gravity for more than a couple of days, that seems unlikely. Or are you just extrapolating in a straight line from zero gravity causing health problems to 1 G not causing health problems and concluding that 1/6th G will cause 5/6ths of the the health problems that zero
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Why is building something to withstand 1g a problem (besides having to do it on the Moon)? Everything we build here on Earth is able to withstand 1g just fine.
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We very rarely build large structures that hang from things.
Gravity sucks (Score:2)
Why would you want it on the moon or anywhere?
Re:Gravity sucks (Score:4, Informative)
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As gravity is one of the fundamentals of almost almost everything alive that developed on this planet,
"everything"?! Far from it, most life has been in the oceans, where a doubling or halving of gravity would make little difference. It's only us newcomer land-creatures who are sensitive to its strength. Especially the larger of us.
Re:Gravity sucks (Score:5, Interesting)
"everything"?! Far from it, most life has been in the oceans, where a doubling or halving of gravity would make little difference.
Are you sure? One of the ways fish estimate depth is through pressure difference, which is directly linked to gravity value.
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Are you sure? One of the ways fish estimate depth is through pressure difference, which is directly linked to gravity value.
Good point, although I imagine that's something that they could probably adapt to.
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"everything"?! Far from it, most life has been in the oceans, where a doubling or halving of gravity would make little difference.
Are you sure? One of the ways fish estimate depth is through pressure difference, which is directly linked to gravity value.
Analogously, the human sense of balance soon adapts to microgravity. But land-dwellers have bigger problems.
We are talking about lower or higher gravity, not zero-G. Yes, there are processes affected by, and depending on, gravity in ocean life. But they would adapt far more easily to the *degree* of gravity.
It is a lot easier to calibrate sensors than to redesign a circulatory system.
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As gravity is one of the fundamentals of almost almost everything alive that developed on this planet,
"everything"?! Far from it, most life has been in the oceans, where a doubling or halving of gravity would make little difference. It's only us newcomer land-creatures who are sensitive to its strength. Especially the larger of us.
Thank you, Captain Pedantic, for rescuing us from the correct answer to the question about why we’d want gravity in space. Imagine the horror had you not been here to save us from a correct answer that has a phrasing with which we can quibble!
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Thank you, Captain Pedantic
It is not pedantry. "Life" doesn't need 1g-gravity. People do.
We only need artificial gravity on the moon if we have people there.
Which makes more sense?
1. Spend billions over and over the make each project human-compatible.
2. Spend billions once to develop robots that make humans redundant.
Get rid of the people, and most of your problems are solved.
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It's not clear that we'd need 1g. It's something to learn about, but much less gravity may be sufficient to preserve bone stable bone mass.
Re: Gravity sucks (Score:2)
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Re:Gravity sucks (Score:4, Funny)
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Re: Gravity sucks (Score:2)
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Check again. filtering, and settling, are still affected by the relative density of materials. So is floating, and it's likely involved in the successful gestation of eggs, whether externally or in the womb.
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You do realize that even in the oceans there is gravity.
Sure the force of gravity towards the center of the earth can be offset by buoyancy in the lifeforms but that life form wouldn't have created that bouncy without gravity to fight against. Take any sea creature and transport them to the Moon or Mars and I highly doubt that they will be any better able to handle the low gravity than land creatures would.
There may be creatures that can handle the different pressures in the ocean but they still evolved to
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Perhaps special individuals must be biologically developed for long term life on any place off this planet.
I think this is more or less the right path.
If we're serious about becoming a multi-planet space-faring civilization, we'll need to make intelligent choices about when it make sense to adapt the environment to us, and us to the environment.
Interplanetary space travel (let alone interstellar) is going to be so cumbersome and expensive for the foreseeable future that I really only see people on those trips as one-way colonists (most exploration will be done by robots). Thus, it makes more sense to facilitate
Re: Gravity sucks (Score:2)
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Spin dizzy (Score:2)
At that rate of rotation, I would think it's going to start messing with the inner ear and cause all sorts of vertigo problems. Not to mention how the high rate of spin will affect trajectories inside the structure, so nothing's going to work as humans expect it, least of all their balance...
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Not to mention how the high rate of spin will affect trajectories inside the structure, so nothing's going to work as humans expect it, least of all their balance...
The seasoned crew will have a lot of fun playing tennis with the new arrivals.
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At that rate of rotation, I would think it's going to...cause all sorts of vertigo problems.
Imagen smocking bongz in dat cone:
HEY MAN IM TOTES SPINNING OUT, NO SRSLY@@@
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At that rate of rotation, I would think it's going to start messing with the inner ear and cause all sorts of vertigo problems. Not to mention how the high rate of spin will affect trajectories inside the structure, so nothing's going to work as humans expect it, least of all their balance...
3 RPMs is actually just about the limit where pretty much everyone is able to handle it except the hypersensitive. You would need to adjust for which way you're facing when playing a game of darts, but you almost certainly would not get nauseous or confused after a few days at least. It would be easier than an oceangoing boat in mild weather.
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Re: Spin dizzy (Score:2)
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And you will weigh more walking in one direction than the other.
Yes. The biggest issue is your height, your environment, is a large percentage of the rotational radius - you can easily see the curvature essenally. This is the gradient of force per unit distance. So on a 200 foot diameter ship, with a cylindrical spinning chamber, if you were 5 feet tall you’re 5% of the radius and the curvature of the hull looks quite curved. Instead have two pods add to the same mass but separated 40 miles on a thin steel bar, spinning about their center of mass 20 miles awa
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Ooooh, link please, I can't remember that! It's been a while since I saw that series, but I loved how accurate space flight was, all the way from "Amos, hit your boots and hold on, we're doing high-G maneuvers!!" to "Ship, plot a course from here to Ganymede, thrusters only, no engines!".
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Lower gravity? (Score:3)
Won't people living in lower gravity on the moon just allow for even more obesity?
In theory yes, in practice no (Score:2)
Astronauts have to be pretty damn fit before they're sent up on a proper launch (ie not a Bezos pretend rocket), more so if they're going to go to the moon which means they're already used to eating well and doing exercise.
Also food will be limited on a moonbase anyway so no one is going to be tucking into donuts and burgers every day.
What WILL be a problem is muscle wastage. Not as bad as in zero G but will still probably be significant which is what this is probably designed to counteract though as someon
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Health problems stemming from long times spent in zero or low gravity are a real concern. People lose bone mass, lose muscle, suffer from vision problems and more.
That said, centrifugal "gravity" has been tried and doesn't work very well. One of the main problems is that the force isn't straight down, it's at an angle. The angle depends on the radius of the circle. The result is that when you reach out to pick something up, a lifetime of muscle memory goes out the window because gravity isn't working how yo
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That said, centrifugal "gravity" has been tried and doesn't work very well. One of the main problems is that the force isn't straight down, it's at an angle. The angle depends on the radius of the circle. The result is that when you reach out to pick something up, a lifetime of muscle memory goes out the window because gravity isn't working how you expect, and unless the ring is truly massive it will actually vary along the length of your arm.
Rubbish. It's straight down, the math is easy.
Experiments have been done on Earth and they were never very successful, except at determining that it doesn't work well.
Oh, they tried it on earth, where there's already a gravitational field? Yeah, that won't work. 1G outwards + 1G downwards = 45 degrees.
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the force isn't straight down, it's at an angle. ...
Rubbish. It's straight down, the math is easy.
On earth, if you lift your arm away from your torso, your forearm experiences some force of its own accord -- 1G worth of gravity pulls it straight down.
Standing in a big centrifuge in a weightless environment, all forces on your extended forearm are transmitted through your torso instead.
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On earth, if you lift your arm away from your torso, your forearm experiences some force of its own accord -- 1G worth of gravity pulls it straight down.
Standing in a big centrifuge in a weightless environment, all forces on your extended forearm are transmitted through your torso instead.
I'm confused. You might need to restate this. On Earth, with normal gravity, how are forces on your extended forearm _not_ transmitted through your torso?
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On Earth, with normal gravity, how are forces on your extended forearm _not_ transmitted through your torso?
On earth, gravity is pulling your arm directly towards the earth's centre of mass, independently of its attachment to your body. In a centrifuge, the centripetal acceleration used to simulate gravity is only being transmitted to your arm through its attachment to your body. It's quite disconcerting.
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The centripetal force is the analog to the force resisting gravity in the non-rotating frame. Both forces are transmitted entirely through your shoulder to your arm.
The centrifugal force is the gravity analog. It is straight "down" in both cases and has nothing to do with your shoulder.
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On earth, gravity is pulling your arm directly towards the earth's centre of mass, independently of its attachment to your body. In a centrifuge, the centripetal acceleration used to simulate gravity is only being transmitted to your arm through its attachment to your body. It's quite disconcerting.
I sort of see what you're getting at here. If you're in freefall, and you spin up something like this from a stop and you have an object not touching the floor, and you're in a vacuum, that object will just just hang there. So, for example, if you were to detach your arm before it starts spinning and your feet are on the floor then, when it starts spinning, you would start to experience a "downward" force, but your arm would stay stationary (although from your point of view it would be moving in a loop-de-l
Re:Lower gravity? (Score:4, Informative)
Scott Manley did a great video about it: https://youtu.be/nxeMoaxUpWk [youtu.be]
At about 10 minutes in there is some footage of one of the experiments done on Earth. You can see that even simple tasks become difficult, and darts appear to travel along a curve when thrown.
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The radius of that centrifuge was only a few meters and it was rotating about once every three seconds. That's short enough that their feet would be traveling noticeably faster than their heads. That's probably what's going on.
The larger the radius, the less head:foot difference there will be. The device being proposed here has a radius of 100m and rotates once every 20 seconds. It will be a lot better.
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Rubbish. It's straight down, the math is easy.
The original poster is considering the forces created due to change in angular momentum as a body moves, as well as the centrifugal force. I have done the experiment myself in an earth-based centrifuge and the sideways pull on your arm as you raise it is quite disconcerting. You can try it for yourself on the right fairground ride.
I don’t know how bad the effect would be on a centrifuge of the scale of the one described in the article. I think the effect would be less as the change would be smaller
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You probably wouldn't want to play darts, tennis, or other such games. But with a larger radius the effects diminish quite a lot.
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Yep. The centrifuge in that video is spinning at about 20rpm. That will throw things off.
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Part of your argument depends on the external work not being done by telefactors (the press calls those "robots", but they've got really minimal smarts). I think, though, that most of it would be. The people would be needed on site to avoid light-speed delay in controlling things. But just how many will depend greatly on how the tech evolves.
OTOH, a lot depends on what the "minimum long-term gravity need" is for people, and I don't think we know that. We know that zero-g doesn't work well.
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Experiments have been done on Earth and they were never very successful, except at determining that it doesn't work well.
Which experiments are these? Were they at the local carnival? It certainly hasn't been tried in space.
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Both NASA and the USSR/Russia did experiments. The Earth's gravity was not the problem, the the rotation was.
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The rotation is definitely a problem with Nausea, etc. Not when the rotation is down around 3 RPMs or less though. Nearly anyone except the extremely hypersensitive can adjust at that rotation rate. It's not that different from adjusting to being on a boat. It takes a pretty big ring though. Obviously the giant ice-cream cone design is way out there. Among other problems, there's absolutely no rational reason that it would need to be a big cone, balanced on the tip. The floors do need to be sloped, but ther
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Re: Lower gravity? (Score:2)
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The force is always straight down, by definition. That is literally how we define "down". It's the direction the force of gravity points in.
You know how people often refer to zero gravity in space as "free fall"? There is no difference at all between falling without anything to stop you, and simply not having any gravity. You only become aware that gravity is present and that you're falling when some other force gets involved. Like when you're standing on the ground, and it pushes your feet up and keep
Publish or perish (Score:2)
Just saying...
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The true bane to Proper Science Reporting.
There is a lot of good science going on, however these scientist will need to take a break from their work, to publish some papers some may be actually tangential to their actual work, just to make sure their names are out there, as well the universities and grant holders get some credit.
The study of Science tends to not fair well with the worlds economic systems. There is a lot of work, effort and money that often goes into No results. Or the findings actually beco
Sounds quite difficult (Score:4, Insightful)
I think an easier goal would be to bring artificial gravitas to the Moon.
Okay, I'll show myself out now.
Perhaps the Wall of Death would be cheaper (Score:2)
Rather than rotate the structure, rotate the people.
Of course, to save costs, you could start with the Semi-circular Wall of Death :-) (apologies to whoever coined that joke first.)
This surely isn't that difficult - fairgrounds have also had Waltzers and other high-g rides for decades.
Re: Perhaps the Wall of Death would be cheaper (Score:2)
Temporary shutdown for maintenance (Score:3)
Nothing to worry about for those who are standing on a vertical wall at 400m height. Nope, nothing at all.
engineering (Score:4, Insightful)
Because nothing could possibly go wrong. Except when you need to shut down the thing for maintenance every few years. Or if there's a power failure. Or someone presses the wrong button and all that water decides it doesn't want to say on what's now a wall...
It might be easier to breed/bio-engineer humans that don't suffer from low gravity issues.
Looks awesome but please put it underground! (Score:2)
Okay the video is cool (the second one where you are on the moon, not the one with a blue sky.. nor the third one where you get turned upside to enter your bullet train capsule into a revolver speed loader..) It really makes you have an epiphany and try to imagine an amazing new world.
BUT, I am thinking I would prefer it to be underground. If I am living in it I want a lot more shielding, easier maintenance, less stress, less disastrous failure modes. One meteorite hitting that thing is going to let all the
won't work (Score:2)
100m diameter is far too small, and at rotational speeds that generate any meaningful amounts of gravity-like force, will lead to inner ear and balance issues, as well as nausea of subjects even turn their head.
100m diameter is a big carnival ride, not a sustainable platform.
Centrifugal forces don't exist. (Score:2)
What is a Hexatrack transport system? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Nearest I could figure is that it's a rotating spacecraft. That's only from a supposed picture of it though. All the articles seem to just mention it in passing.
Hard to see... (Score:2)
Hard to see where the moon comes by. I mean you can try this more comfortably in orbit.
Except if the idea is to mine the building materials from the moon, or build it in a covered zone to avoid radiation, you are better off with a free vehicle, I'd say.
Cones? (Score:1)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0... [imdb.com]
But... (Score:2)
That's not 'artificial gravity' (Score:2)
Japan should build the half giant robot/half tanks (Score:2)
Then use those to build some nice space colonies, then go from that.
Skipping the part where a colony gets crashed into earth and kill half of the world population would be nice tho