The basics of Artificial Gravity - Space Pod 05/11/16
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TMRO Correspondent Lisa Stojanovski spins a tale on the potential problems of artificial gravity, and why we don’t have a centrifuge module on the International Space Station. TMRO Space Pods are crowd funded shows. If you like this episode consider contributing to help us to continue to improve. Head over to http://www.patreon.com/spacepod for information, goals and reward levels. Don't forget to check out our weekly live show campaign as well over at http://www.patreon.com/tmro
Comments
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In order to give people some gravity during sleep all you need is a hammock tied to 2 synchronized motors attached to bulkheads. Think of a normal hammock on a marine vessel, but on the ISS. It looks pretty silly because it doesn't hang any particular direction. Now, have someone get in and situate themselves as if they are hanging one direction or another. Now, spin up the motors. That would probably go a significant way toward reducing certain degradation of a humans's systems that otherwise occur living in zero g for weeks.
This is so cheap and easy I'm surprised the Russians haven't tried it. But not really, because I wonder if their modules aren't even large enough to pull it off.
The more I think about this, the more it makes sense. Picture 2 meter industrial long dryer tumbler, but for 4 people sleeping. They are kept in position by something like the fins in an actual dryer. If I wanted to go to Mars, I would definitely not want to have my body totally lose the hard acceleration (g) aspects of its firmware over the trip. I'd definitely beg for the cheap sleeping acceleration if I could get it.
Of course, when we landed on Mars and my body experienced steady acceleration for more than several minutes I'd get super sleepy. But that would be be a smaller obstacle than having to pull a huge suite of autonomic support functions out of cold storage before I could function well. The neocortex is waay more than just your consciousness, and it's wired into everything and its subject to forgetting how to do things over weeks and months of not doing them. -
The problem <crackle> with <cracklecrackle> artificial <crackle> gravity...
Fix your microphone, kid, or stop running around. -
5:00 eat me
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Counterweight and tether would be the safest method. No giant gasket and subsequent atmospheric leakage to worry about. No problems with ever changing center of gravity that would cause the stationary super structure to wobble.. Longer tether would allow a more normal gradient between the head and feet. Less dizziness.
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always thinking too big think small only use artificial gravity when sleeping.do small exercises as push-ups sit ups you can do a lot whilst on the floor. I rather sleep in gravity for 8 hours then no gravity. I designed a centrifuge for this reason
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i dont really think the gravity gradient will be an issue, we humans tend to adapt pretty quickly.
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We really need to be researching artificial gravity more as we do not even know how much g humans actually need.
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Great video, Lisa! I hoped to learn more about the tether system, though.
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I would have expected some information on what rotation radius we need for 1g to minimize the stated drawbacks to a practical useful level (500m?). Also no word about dizziness.
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Great pod thanks! Sad that the japanese module was cancelled, it would have been a definitive first step. We need to experiment this stuff.
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Awesome sauce, Lisa. I've been looking forward to a centrifugal force artificial gravity Space Pod for some time.
Rotating centrifuges also have to account for the difficulties of reliable bearings, spin and de-spin torque on the rest of the spacraft, and other difficulties which make them engineering nightmares. "The Gap Cycle" by Stephen R. Donaldson describes some of these in horrifying space pirate style. Read at your own peril. -
Is it possible to get some gravity by having a larger dense mass/material?
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Haha, that was hilarious! You are a real entertainer Lisa! All those creative camera angles and funny demonstrations. :)
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Smart and cute! Love this lady
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Fantastic job, Lisa! This was a really nice space pod.
There's at least one way of creating artificial gravity that you didn't mention, but I assume that's because of its impracticality. Accelerating your spacecraft constantly! Accelerating forward half of the way, then turning around and and decelerating for the second half. We're probably far away from propulsion systems capable of that, and of course there are orbital mechanics related details my simplified explanation omitted, but gravity generated this way would be a fantastic approximation of what we have on Earth. -
Centrifugal? Or centripetal? It's been a few years but my physics teacher was adamant about one of those being wrong.
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Just to make sure you read this:
It has to be F = ω² * m * r and NOT F = ω² * r. Mass wants some love too. -
I still see 2 applications for it: 1. for sleep time where humans could lay down for hours in a centrifuge module (which may help their bones) and 2. plants to grow foods. These 2 applications will be less affected by the gradient of force as the height of those objects will be less than 40cm and be place only on the wall.
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This was awesome :)
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Wow i did not know they have a mockup of Iss in WA, Lisa can you do a video on the mockup Iss please? And is the public allowed to see it?
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