Posted on 11/26/2016 8:21:49 AM PST by BenLurkin
In the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick’s spacecraft spins through the solar system like a giant, futuristic ferris wheel. The rotating craft has a suitably epic quality and, through the centripetal force, conveniently explains why there appears to be gravity inside the spaceship.
In real life future astronauts may have to settle for a slightly less cinematic form of artificial gravity, however. Space scientists working on the problem have developed a large vacuum cleaner-like device that seals around the astronaut’s waist, creating the impression of weight on the lower body through a powerful suction force.
Alan Hargens, an orthopaedic surgeon at the University of California, San Diego who helped develop the lower body negative pressure (LBNP) device, describes it as “an early form of artificial gravity”.
“A centrifuge is probably the best thing we could give the astronauts, but it’s very expensive and there are also some safety issues with having a rotating device on a spacecraft,” he said. “This device works like a vacuum cleaner, so the person can exercise at their normal body weight.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
If you are rotating around a fixed point at a constant rate, you are constantly accelerating.
Even though the rotational velocity is constant, the direction of motion is constantly changing, and that can only be accomplished through acceleration.
A way of visualizing it is to imagine a clockwise spinning merry-go-round. When you are at the north end of it you are headed due east. When you are at the south end you are headed due west. Some acceleration had to occur to reverse your direction.
Thank you. That has bothered me for a long time. :)
No, the inertia of motion would create the centripetal force which would feel just like gravity.
regardless...
we ARE going to mars.
Colonizing, AT PRESENT, is a joke.
Naw. Not people. If we do send people they aren’t gonna make it to Mars.
I predict that it won’t go anywhere with NASA, but that the porn industry will make a fortune on it!
"Won't ever" is a long time. It implies no advancements "ever". Before 1947, some "experts" thought breaking the sound barrier in a manned aircraft would be impossible.
Current transit time from Earth to Mars is about 6 months for a probe, and that is without any ongoing boost during transit. Testing of EM Drives continue to yield positive results and adding one of them would reduce transit time to Mars to under 1 month.
uh...no...NEVER
With ever increasing requirements for triple redundancy & proof testing for every component and sub-system, there will never be a constituency large enough to justify the expense.
Too many departments of CYA to ever make this affordable or justifiable.
Marginal breakthroughs in one or a few technologies will never overcome the laundry list of unacceptable risks.
see post # 30
In the movie, the spaceship "Odyssey One" included a rotating carousel section to store the majority of the ship's crew for the transit to Jupiter. You probably remember the scene where one of the crew jogs around the ring.
“Never” is a long time. Look at the technology we have today and compare it to even 50 years ago. Travel back 500 years ago and it all looks like sorcery. Talking to people in other parts of the world instantly. Images moving on screens. Flying to any point in the globe in less than 1 day. Artificial hearing. Artificial bones. Artificial limbs. Access to the world’s store of information on a device you can store in your back pocket. Ships of steel weighing thousands of tons powered by the same forces as the Sun. Tunneling machines that can burrow thru solid rock.
If you have such little imagination and hope for the future, I then wish you well in your retirement.
It has nothing to do with lack of imagination.
It is a recognition of the explosion in oversight that smothers potential.
No longer is the question “what’s possible?”, rather, “who get’s blamed if this doesn’t work?”
Too many layers and departments dedicated to protecting the boss.
Too many contractors reporting to NASA know nothings, motivated by continued and increasing funding.
This isn’t about propulsion technology, this is about the hundreds of layers of technology needed to get a man rated system there and back.
This is because risk averse people are in charge. Yet the history is that real risks slip by (possibly because everyone is too focused on CYA?)
The NASA of 2016 probably could not put one soldier onto a real battlefield.
Same thing with flying. It'll never happen.
“not sure centripedal force would work, especially if you toss something into the air.”
It works. But things fall differently. It’s called the Coriolis Effect.
Here is how objects move within a spinning frame:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_force#Tossed_ball_on_a_rotating_carousel
For example, if you throw something to someone else, it will follow a straight line, but the line will appear to curve relative to the ones throwing and catching.
Yes, you could levitate by slowing your velocity in relation to the moving floor, but as long as your body is moving with it, you will experience something very similar to gravity beneath you.
makes sense, but in a zero-g environment, if you throw an object against the rotation, it will lose the benefits of the cent force and is thrown with enough force -10m/sec to counter the 10 m/sec approximation of gravity, it will lose weight and hover as the drum turns around it.
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