Artificial gravity for space stations

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum.

In light of muscle wasting and bone problems when subjected to long term low gravity environments, a simple solution to the problem of artificial gravity in space is needed.

If you condisider the station from 2001, a rotating structure, and then consider the engineering difficulties and cost of such a station, arificial gravity in space seems unfeasible.

You could opt for a simple solution http://www.geocities.com/codex34/paper/models/sst3.html which is similar to the first example but simpler to engineer. And then we come back to the cost.

Then you could dream about electrostatic attraction and realise people don't like being electricuted.

I came up with a much cheaper and simpler solution a few years ago and would like some opinions.
The idea is to take the principles of verticle wind tunnels for skydivers and simply reverse it. http://www.flyawayindoorskydiving.com/
A single module could be made to house the equiptment.
All you would need is to engineer is a high drag suit.
However i'm wondering what duration would be needed per astronaut per day.
The suit could even have a virtual reality headset, they could do something useful or just play dungeons and dragons.

The problems that may occur are :-
overheating in the suit - air condition it.
breathing difficulties in a fast airflow - wear a mask.
gyroscopic induce torque on the station - contra-rotating motors.
Falling over and being stuck to the ground - emergency shutdown.
The effects of having your bones, joints compressed and experience a downward force but having your stomache in a low gravity state.

Anyone live near a vertical wind tunnel and handy with needle and thread?
Anyone work for NASA?
Anyone see any problems?

 

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I'm sure a spinning ring would be simpler, as once it begines spinning there is no more energy needed to keep it rotating.

 

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you'l have a verry drafty space station
I also believe that this is a battle between upwards air pressure and downwards gravity, in a zero gravity enviroment you would yust fly backwards until you hit something.
if you reverse it you would get sucked into the fan or if there is a grill you would have 100 of hickies in the grill pattern.
I also ones started a thread abouth feasionable artificial gravity feel free to commend it link

 

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Yup, and the station becomes it's own gyro, which is a neat side effect. Also, sitting at your station, working, and having space scroll past the porthole is a real nice to have feature!

 

Until you see debris that looks like it came from your space station.

 

Well, as long as they don't skimp on the proximity RADAR for docking manouvres like they did on a few 'Progress' supply ships sent to Mir, all should be well!

Docking will be a little trickier, as the rotation of the station will have to be matched, so the radius of the ship will have to be fairly big, so the rotation is nice and slow, or the approaching pilot and crew will be a sick making spin!

 

I assumed this ring would have struts leading to the center with access.

 

I'm not sure spinning stations is the answer, wouldn't you expend alot of energy getting the cargo ships to spin/despin. Mind you getting a cargo ship to do a latteral correction whilst spinning should be fun.
With a wind tunnel you could have any G you wanted, 2 G for a bit of exercise, lunar G for practicing your moon walk.

I agree with the grill problem, it might get blocked with sequins from the high drag suit

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A gentle spin in the order of one rpm, compared to the energy it took to launch out of the Earth's atmosphere? The Shuttle rolls over and stops, that takes TWICE the energy! A few retro bursts is all it would take, incredbly little fuel!

[quite]With a wind tunnel you could have any G you wanted, 2 G for a bit of exercise, lunar G for practicing your moon walk. [/quote]

Idiot, 1G using wind is 140mph! You aren't going to get ANY work done with 140mph wind blowing!

 

No, you'd just park in the middle of a donut shaped space ship, open the hatch, jump, and hope for the best.

 

What about a spinning sphere? You could have different values of G as you approached the "north" or "south".

 

Oh dear... Oh dear oh dear....

The effect of gravity on earth is to exert a compressive force on the skeleton. THe knees bear about 75% of the bodyweight, the hips about 50%, the lower neck about 12% [although for some of you it will be considerably less]. All you have to do in space is reproduce this effect, to account for much of boneloss. A simple way to do this might be to develope a suit which is anchored beneath the feet and then at various points upto and including the top of the head, it would need to have elastic properties. A bit like a modified diving suit. The problem of course is the inconvenience of wearing it, unless it were possible during periods of sleep.

If you take the 'wheel' idea mentioned above but on a smaller scale it is possible to construct a circular room where the astronaut sits with his back to the wall, with a work console in front. It would be relatively easy to 'balance' the room by using computer controlled fluid pumps and staorage chambers. The diameter of the room could be as little as 2Metres. The astronaut would feel they were lying on their back.

Megabrain has spoken.

 

ah you're using mine ID from the threath I submitted
It's not perfect if you remember the corioles effect but with today's technolgy and prices it is the best possible solution


But the station with the ring is ofcourse the best solution we can think of right now even if the price is scifi.

Wat abouth a station that exist of a unmanend heavy central piece that contains a (nuclear) generator (no solar panels on this one) all the fuel and a rocket for orbital adjustment. The ring habitat lays loosly on this middle section so it looks like a donut hanging on a flat stick, when the station wan'ts to create artificial gravity it sepperates from the central piece. This happens by a repulisive force from elektromagnets that are atached to the main piece against natural magnets that are atached to the ring, so the ring moves as far away as it can making that the central piece is now in the middle, then the electromagnets start to turn making the station turn and creating artificial G with 0 thrust, by reverse means the orbiter can stop. And reatach itself.

 

140 mph? where did you get that calculation from?
High drag, not extra lube!!!

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And excuse me if i'm wrong, but a 1 RPM station would need to be a mile across!

 

I don't believe that spinning or fast air would work. New technology/understanding is needed in gravitational forces. To create artificial gravity would require new technology that would create an artificial gravity field underneith it.

Problems off the top of my head:

1) What about this gravity field interfering with Earth/moon gravity? That could probobly be disasterous.

2) You would probobly be pulling quite a bit of space debry towards your location, which isnt ideal for the weak shells of our spacestations.

 

take a bucket and fell it with water now rotate around yourself, go fast enof and spead your arms, you wil see that the water in the bucket will stay in the bucket.
This is how artificial ring gravity works. Altough the water stays in no spoons or other stuff will be attracted to you. So this kind of station would defenitley work. but would be quit enermous like you said your mile*Pi, but actually 50metres*pi would proberly be enof.

 

If you want to want to counter the effect of Earth's gravity, how fast do you have to blow air at someone so they can float? Seen those enclosures where you can hover on a stream of air? That air moves at about 140mph. So to use air to reproduce 1G, how fast would it have to go? 140mph. I am reading you right here am I, that you propose to simulate gravity by blowing air at people?

What problem is there with that? You don't have to have a continuous circle with that radius, just have accommodation at the ends of a long boom, and a lift system running along it to connect the two sides, via the docking hub in the centre. The RPM could be faster, several RPM, shrinking the boom length, depending on how fast you can rotate around your axis before feeling sick. Unless of course the pilots and passengers sit so that the spin up gives rise to a force that acts on them perpendicularly, then you can rotate faster, but that will probably require seating that can move after launch.

 

a 1rpm station that produces 1G wil have a radius of 894.2592470095186 meters and a Tangential Velocity of 93.64660936032813 meters/sec.
that is pretty big.
If you change the gravity to 0.35G (martian gravity) and double the rotation(=2rpm) you only have a radius of 78.24 meters

we cant make a space station that is so big, but we could make a tether that is that long. Add to module and make them spin around each other it might work, but you would need some kind of elevator between the 2 modules

 

It's not just the force on the torso that needs to be considered however. While such as system as you propose could prevent muscle and bone atrophy, it doesn't address the re-balancing of fluid and blood in the body. As far as the circulatory system is concerned, it is still in zeroG. and therefore still has blood vessels opened differently to compensate. Therefore there are still long term health issues, and there would still be a transition from your proposed system to real G to consider.

 

They tried the tether system with gemini, it didn't work too well.
I know the russians had problems with vibrations on their antenae, so would you need to 'rig' the station like the mast on a ship?

yes i did mean air, but terminal velocity is 120-200mph for a skydiver in a nylon suit.
My aim was to reduce the velocity needed by creating a high drag suit, yes you would still have a high velocity of air, for which you would require a mask and have a seperate module. Small price to pay for long term space flight.

I came up with a 'new technology', place electromagnets under the floor and have the astronauts wear a metal hat and wrist bands.

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