Among the many risks astronauts face during long-distance spaceflight, a prolonged stay in microgravity is one of the most important for long-term health, with effects on vision, bones, muscles and many other aspects of the body. One solution could be artificial gravity, some way to create forces similar to Earth’s gravity on a spacecraft, similar to the giant spinning ring in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Is it close or will it remain science fiction? Latest Live Science Videos “There’s really no reason it couldn’t happen,” Torin Clark, an associate professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder, told LiveScience. “From a technical point of view, this is something that could happen in the very near future.” In fact, artificial gravity has almost reached space before. The Centrifuge Accommodation Module was a planned 2.5 meter (8.2 ft) wide centrifuge for the International Space Station (ISS), but the project was canceled in 2005 for budgetary reasons. You might like it”[Artificial gravity] It’s one of those things: Suddenly, it becomes super popular, and then all the scientists at NASA and everyone… have a lot of funding to understand how to actually implement this, and then it just dies,” Ana Díaz Artiles, an associate professor of aerospace engineering at Texas A&M University, told LiveScience. “And then it comes back and dies and comes back. I’ve been through a couple of these cycles in the time I’ve been doing this. “In addition to budget concerns, there are questions about how such a solution would be implemented. Feed your curiosity with an exclusive mystery each week, solved with science and delivered straight to your inbox before it’s seen anywhere else.”Everyone agrees it’s a good thing to do. The problem is that we don’t know how to implement it,” Díaz Artiles said. “How much gravity do you need? how big [the device] does it have to be? How long do you need it to be? And how much time do you have to use this? Should we use continuous gravity or a short radius centrifuge, something you go in and out of? Not all pieces can be placed on the same spaceship; It takes several spaceships and putting everything together. So, of course, you can see what a big effort this is.” What to read next A short-radius centrifuge is a more feasible option. It’s essentially a tube with a radius of 6 to 10 feet (1.8 to 3 m) that rotates to simulate gravity. A passenger sits or stands inside, with his head closest to the center of rotation, so the spin generates the strongest pull toward his feet. Astronaut Sunita Williams, equipped with an elastic harness, does exercises on the treadmill. Vibration Isolation System (TVIS) on the Zvezda service module of the International Space Station in 2006. (Image credit: NASA/Crew of Expedition 14, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons) Instead of allowing passengers to live in artificial gravity, this smaller device would be used in short daily sessions. “It’s like an exercise device,” Díaz Artiles said. “On the ISS, you have a treadmill. running, you have this resistance exercise machine, so you go there. “The last option is for the spacecraft to create gravity through linear acceleration. This works in the same way that an accelerating car pushes passengers back into their seats, except the spacecraft would be oriented to push an astronaut’s feet against the ground. To slow down, the spacecraft would spin, firing its thrusters in the opposite direction to gently decelerate while maintaining roughly similar gravity for its occupants. “But then you need something like an engine that is capable of accelerating all the time,” Diaz said. Artiles. “And as far as propulsion, I think we’re not there yet.” Although a short radius centrifuge is the most feasible approach in terms of cost and engineering, it has some drawbacks. For one thing, its rapid spin can induce the Coriolis cross-coupling illusion, a sensation of tilting or falling that occurs when you tilt your head off-axis while spinning. This is the effect that causes dizziness, Clark said. However, Clark and his team have found that people can build tolerance to the sensation with training, simply by being in a slowly spinning centrifuge and gradually increasing the speed when they no longer feel the sensation. “If you very slowly and incrementally increase the speed of spinning… and do it not just in one session but in several sessions over several days, as far as we know, anyone can gradually acclimatize to the spinning environment. [of] up to 20 to 30 rotations per minute,” Clark said. Would artificial gravity prevent harmful effects on the body? But researchers still don’t know how fast the centrifuge would need to spin, or how long someone must spend inside it to benefit. Prolonged periods in microgravity can lead to bone and muscle loss, loss of aerobic capacity, blood clots, and vision problems due to fluid shifts in the eyes. The hope is that artificial gravity can prevent those effects, but exactly how much gravity is necessary. It remains an open question. Studies of people on head-down bed rest, the standard research method to simulate deconditioning from spaceflight, have found that 30 minutes a day in a centrifuge prevented some loss of muscle function. “Thirty minutes a day… may not be enough,” Clark said. “Maybe an hour or even two hours a day, and maybe at higher G levels, would be beneficial. “It’s very difficult,” Díaz Artiles said. “I think people are interested in this concept, but we just don’t have a good answer.” In the end, it’s not a technological challenge that prevents artificial gravity from being used in space; As humans, we have done more difficult things,” Díaz Artiles said. “We need the money, but we also need to better understand the need.” See how much you know about human space exploration with our spaceflight quiz! TOPICS Life’s Little Mysteries
