the secret behind artificial gravity?

[dstebbins]

Long-term space residence has long been a "maybe one day" dream of Nasa's, simply because the lack of gravity makes it very difficult to excersise in space, so people's muscles and bones would gradually deteriorate (it's amazing how much excersise you get just sitting here resisting your own body weight).

 

However, there are other forms of resistance besides weight due to gravity. A good example is magnets. Magnetic charge is much stronger than gravity, as is demonstrated when you hold a magnet a few inches above a metal pen and the pen jumps up to the magnet. Maybe we could make small chips of magnetic metal in all the astronaut's clothing, and make the floor the opposite charge so you are constantly resisting being thrown to the floor, just like, here on earth, you are constantly resisting gravity pulling you to the ground and crushing you. The magnets would be rather diluted, so we don't get too much more than one g.

 

Am I thinking right, or is there some other complication that I'm not aware of?

[mimefan599]

It would probably end up that it pulls on your clothes and not your body so it would feel weird, rip your clothes, or not even effect you a negligable amount

 

If they knocked the bugs out, I don't see why not.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

That may cause problems with spacecraft electronics.

 

also... "I'm stuck to the wall! Help me!"

[NeonBlack]

The force from magnetic dipoles decrease proportional to the inverse cube of distance, while gravity on earth (since it is so large) is just about constant.

So by putting magnetic in the floor, your feet would feel a huge force and your head and arms would experience significantly less downward force.

It might be like wearing iron boots here on earth.

[Glider]

Not only that, but if you put, for example, one paper clip in contact with a magnet, it becomes magnetic and other paper clips will stick to it. By that principle, as soon as your boots touched the floor, your whole suit would become magnetised and your arms would stick to your body and your legs would stick together and...well, you see the problem.

[bascule]

Want to know NASA's amazing solution to this problem?

 

Springy tethers

 

Hook yourself up to them and run on treadmill. The force you exert every step you take is reflected by the springiness of the tether, so you bounce up and down on top of it.

 

Yes, that's NASA's amazing secret to artificial gravity. Springy tethers.

[dstebbins]

Want to know NASA's amazing solution to this problem?

 

Springy tethers

 

Hook yourself up to them and run on treadmill. The force you exert every step you take is reflected by the springiness of the tether, so you bounce up and down on top of it.

 

Yes, that's NASA's amazing secret to artificial gravity. Springy tethers.

 

I've seen that before. The problem with that is that it only kicks in when you're running on the treadmill, so you'd have to excersise vigorously (and by that, I mean as hard as you can) for about eight hours a day with no breaks in order to come close to maintaining your current muscle and bone mass. This just isn't practical for anyone other than pro astronauts, not regular people like on Star Trek. Sorry, but if my idea of magnets won't work, that brings us back to square one.

 

By the way, I figured I should clear up some miscommunications. As for the stuck to the wall problem, the walls would be the same charge as the clothing, so they would repel. You could have a remote with a neutral charge and a magnetic sheild (to protect the computer inside) that would demagnetize the walls in case you needed to approach them, and helmets and shirts would be much stronger magnets than boots and pants, so as to simulate constant resistance. As for the magnetic clothing sticking together, that's a fairly simple solution: Make the clothing short enough so that the magents of different articles don't touch each other. The ripping up the clothes could be solved by simply making more durable clothing than cotton and nylon that we have here on Earth, kind of like that mettalic clothing that we see aliens wear in science fiction movies.

[bascule]

The problem with that is that it only kicks in when you're running on the treadmill, so you'd have to excersise vigorously (and by that, I mean as hard as you can) for about eight hours a day with no breaks in order to come close to maintaining your current muscle and bone mass.

 

Uh huh. Care to give us the math behind that estimate?

[dstebbins]

Uh huh. Care to give us the math behind that estimate?

 

I saw a documentary about it. It was the same documentary that I heard about the problem with the lack of gravity.

 

In order to maintain their current physical shape, an astronaut must undergo seven to eight hours of vigorous excersise a day.

 

They showed a man in a spaceship sprinting so hard that he was straining. You could see it in his face. His teeth were gritted, his eyes were blood red, and his face was as red as a fat basketball player, and he was in rather good shape as well, because he wasn't wearing a shirt, and you could see the muscle tone.

[NeonBlack]

Also, there is no magnetic "charge." For example, a magnetic south pole cannot exist isolated from an equal north pole.

If you're bent on using magnets, instead of putting magnets in your outfit and in the floor, maybe you could put a huge coil of wire with a current running through it around your ship (so that the magnetic field is just about uniform) and then just make the outfit with regular ferromagnetics (lightweight steel maybe) in it.

[dstebbins]

Fair enough.

 

Besides, anyone got a better plan?

[Mokele]

I dunno about better plans, but there's another flaw: magnetized clothing wouldn't provide gravitational resistance to the upward flow of the blood, which leaves astronauts with the issue of cardiac atrophy.

 

In fact, it could even make things much worse; a major source of venous blood return is the contraction of the leg muscles. If your leg muscles are strong, while your heart is weak, that may well be worse than having both weak.

 

Mokele

[Sequence]

Could you use the centrifugal force generated by a spinning section of a ship to create a gravityesque force? Then have people spend as much time in that area as possible?

[[Tycho?]]

Could you use the centrifugal force generated by a spinning section of a ship to create a gravityesque force? Then have people spend as much time in that area as possible?

 

Yes, this has been a staple of sci-fi for decades. Such a thing would be expensive and difficult, but its guarunteed that it will be done sooner or later.

[Sequence]

Would it be possible to have some sort of super dense material near the center of the ship to create a mini gravity field? I know it's highly unlikly but could it happen?

[Spyman]

Would it be possible to have some sort of super dense material near the center of the ship to create a mini gravity field? I know it's highly unlikly but could it happen?

That would not classify as artificial gravity, because it would be real gravity.

 

Disadvantage: Heavier ship = Greatly increased fuel consumption.

 

Alternately the acceleration/decceleration could be used while travelling and upon arrival a quick search for a suitable asteroid, rendevouz and attache it beneath the ship.

When it's time to go, just leave it behind.

 

Disadvantage: IF you find an asteroid, it probably needs to be moved to a different position and speed. = Increased fuel consumption.

(Depending on mission.)

[Sequence]

well gravity is gravity, anyway, I was thinking about it in english and figured it wouldn't work. The ship would have to be a weird shape. shperical

[[Tycho?]]

It would have to be very, very dense. And as has been mentioned, it would be perposterously heavy, far far far too heavy to be useful.

[weknowthewor]

The following link will help you out:

http://www.chronicles-network.com/forum/33973-scientist-creates-artificial-gravity-through-superconductors.html

[Chainsaw Jim]

Losing bonemass would not be a problem if the aastronaut was to spend their entire life in zero G, the bonemass los might reduce them to a jellyfish, but so what? - it's only inportant if you are coming back to gravity, so maybe all our ideas of aliens, are wrong, or maybe this excellent whiskey is clouding my judgement...

[Severian]

Once energy is not a problem, then gravity won't be either. If you are going on a long journey, just keep the ship accelerating at 1g and you will have normal 'gravity'. Half way to your destination, flip the ship around and decelerate at 1g.

 

Constant acceleration is the fastest way to get to your destination - the only problem is that it takes a lot of energy.

[dstebbins]

Would it be possible to have some sort of super dense material near the center of the ship to create a mini gravity field? I know it's highly unlikly but could it happen?

 

theoretically, yes. Practically, no. In order to get the gravity up to 1g, you'd have to have a center equal in mass to Earth, which would be impractical.

[insane_alien]

In order to get the gravity up to 1g, you'd have to have a center equal in mass to Earth, which would be impractical.

 

not even close to being accurate. remember the distance would be a whole lot less that means if it had the mass of the earth you would be looking at a few tens of thousands of g's on a ship. a smaller mass would be capable of producing 1 g fields but for the densities your looking at a small blackhole in your ship which probably isn't the smartest of ideas anyway.

 

ignoring the possibility that the first time you move your ship gets compressed into a singularity, the biggest problem is the gradient of the gravity, since your so close to the source its going to be noticable your feet might be getting 1.2g and your head 0.7 (ok this is a tad exagerated but you'd notice it.

 

then theres the point source problem, the gravity would change direction along the ship. this could be covered by using a spherical ship, not sure if this poses severe problems or what but it might throw a curve ball(no pun intended) into the owrks.

[Sisyphus]

Yes, the gradient would make that solution impossible. If it's 1g at, say 10 ft away, then at 2 inches away its about 64g. How are you going to hold that in place? Or move it?

 

A much, much better and simpler solution would be, as mentioned, spinning the ship. This is not that difficult at all. Ideally you would have a large ship, so you could spin it relatively slowly, and have a gentle gradient from edge to center. (The space station in 2001: A Space Odyssey is an extremely accurate portrayal of this.) However, this same effect could be achieved just by having a small craft with an equal counterweight attached by a long tether, spinning about each other. With that arrangement, you could quite easily have any "gravity" you wanted.

[entwined]

If I were in on the planning for a space ship for extended exploration, I would be thinking in terms of constructing the ship in orbit.

 

It would be shaped like a wheel with sufficient diameter to allow for all the necessities of maintaining normal living standards on the outer deck--near the rim. Perhaps a mile or two in diameter and something like say, 300 ft. in thickness? Then the inner deck(s) would contain all the necessary mechanical hardware and provide storage capacity for the things that we had not at that time learned to re-cycle.

 

The whole ship would revolve around it's axis at a speed sufficient to provide 1 G of gravity on the outer deck and it would be propelled by whatever means was sutable at the time of it's construction.

 

This would be of course, a rather crude affair, but such is the history of man's dominance over his environment.