Artificial gravity in long term space travel

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arbeeg

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I've been interested in the Russians announcement a few months back that they will develop a drive that with a sustained thrust could reach Mars in days rather than months. Any drive that could produce a 1 gee thrust for half of the journey acceclerating and a 1 gee thrust for the second half of the journey decelerating would seem to me to solve the artificial gravity problem in deep space flight.
 
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Valcan

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arbeeg":xl17o4rj said:
I've been interested in the Russians announcement a few months back that they will develop a drive that with a sustained thrust could reach Mars in days rather than months. Any drive that could produce a 1 gee thrust for half of the journey acceclerating and a 1 gee thrust for the second half of the journey decelerating would seem to me to solve the artificial gravity problem in deep space flight.

Err yes it would

BUT....

There is also the fact that any ship that will be under that kind of stress for days or weeks on end would have to be much more massive than one built for lighter gee load.
 
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Yuri_Armstrong

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arbeeg":y6e87q42 said:
I've been interested in the Russians announcement a few months back that they will develop a drive that with a sustained thrust could reach Mars in days rather than months. Any drive that could produce a 1 gee thrust for half of the journey acceclerating and a 1 gee thrust for the second half of the journey decelerating would seem to me to solve the artificial gravity problem in deep space flight.

This sounds interesting. Could you provide details such as ship mass, cost, lanuch window, crew size, etc ?

Also, if they are going at such tremendous speeds, how do they slow the ship down enough to get into Mars orbit? Will they attach retrorockets to the front to cancel out the ship's velocity?
 
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EarthlingX

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I think, this is what he is talking about, from the Russian space travel thread :

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5DQZOB6JSY[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yZlbYQXg0k[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUeQxqM6jT8[/youtube]
 
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neutrino78x

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nuclear thermal rocket is not a big breakthrough. NASA tested that in the 60s.

VASIMR can go to Mars in 39 days, but I did not understand that to be at 1 G acceleration?

I don't think artificial gravity is really necessary on Mars missions, since it is only 6 months each way, and Mars has gravity when you get there.

--Brian
 
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neutrino78x

Guest
I ran into this on wikipedia, from the article on this link, looked relevant to this thread:

wikipedia":2fui4vsm said:
The Gemini 11 mission attempted to produce artificial gravity by rotating the capsule around the Agena Target Vehicle which it was attached to by a 36-meter tether. The resultant force was too small to be felt by either astronaut, but objects were observed moving towards the "floor" of the capsule.

See??? It does, in fact, work!!! :)

--Brian
 
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Yuri_Armstrong

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uberhund":2yw7lajb said:
I concur with Yuri, Raptor, or anyone else flatly stating that "you" (meaning Rockett) cannot create gravity. Ok. Maybe it's just me. But don't feel bad, Rockett. Nobody else can either. Except in the movies. And I bet they use gravitons.

The obvious approach of overcoming the effects of weightlessness during inter-planetary space travel through spinning something, toroidal or otherwise, is futile - for medical, economic, and engineering reasons. To reproduce the essentials our bodies require from gravity through rotation of a space ship (long term space travel - the title of this thread) is a complete non-starter.

Let's focus our resources on real science - sending probes and rovers to Triton and Europa.

uberhund, you have yet to provide something that shows using centrifugal force for artifical gravity is "futile". This is basic space engineering here, it was considered even before Sputnik. For what medical, economic, and engineering reasons can it not be done? Medically it helps a ton, zero g thins out bones and muscles and that gravity can solve the zero g problem. Economic? Sure it will be expensive, but something like the CAM on the ISS would definitely be worth it and would be the most productive science module on board. Engineering? As I've stated earlier this is basic aerospace engineering concepts. It has been shown many times that it can work, we just have yet to give it a try which is a shame because a trip to Mars will be about as long as the stay on the ISS, making it more difficult for the astronauts to adjust once they arrive. Artificial gravity in space would be quite helpful.
 
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rockett

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Yuri_Armstrong":1dqbw3c6 said:
uberhund":1dqbw3c6 said:
I concur with Yuri, Raptor, or anyone else flatly stating that "you" (meaning Rockett) cannot create gravity. Ok. Maybe it's just me. But don't feel bad, Rockett. Nobody else can either. Except in the movies. And I bet they use gravitons.

The obvious approach of overcoming the effects of weightlessness during inter-planetary space travel through spinning something, toroidal or otherwise, is futile - for medical, economic, and engineering reasons. To reproduce the essentials our bodies require from gravity through rotation of a space ship (long term space travel - the title of this thread) is a complete non-starter.

Let's focus our resources on real science - sending probes and rovers to Triton and Europa.

uberhund, you have yet to provide something that shows using centrifugal force for artifical gravity is "futile". This is basic space engineering here, it was considered even before Sputnik. For what medical, economic, and engineering reasons can it not be done? Medically it helps a ton, zero g thins out bones and muscles and that gravity can solve the zero g problem. Economic? Sure it will be expensive, but something like the CAM on the ISS would definitely be worth it and would be the most productive science module on board. Engineering? As I've stated earlier this is basic aerospace engineering concepts. It has been shown many times that it can work, we just have yet to give it a try which is a shame because a trip to Mars will be about as long as the stay on the ISS, making it more difficult for the astronauts to adjust once they arrive. Artificial gravity in space would be quite helpful.
Honestly, I made that post (and on the far far edges of Physics maybe it will be possible in a "galaxy far far away") because I just love baiting uberhund. :D

Truthfully, I have to agree, Yuri. We will actually need it for months/years long missions if our astronauts are going to be in any shape to perform a mission when they get there. Centrifugal force as an substitute has been around for a very long time, before the beginning of the space program. Herman Noordung (aka Herman Potocnik) an Austrian wrote a book on space stations in 1928, "Das Problem der Befahrung des Weltraums" (The Problem of Space Travel: The Rocket Motor). He was the first (I ever heard of) to suggest a wheel-shaped design for a space station to produce artificial gravity.

433px-Noordung_space_station.jpg


http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/N/Noordung.html
 
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neutrino78x

Guest
Yeah, my feeling is that any space journey that involves a long period of coasting, or low acceleration, would be a good candidate to design in a rotating section for artificial gravity.

I would like to see NASA do some experiments on artificial gravity in earth orbit. Like with Gemini 11, except, attempt to achieve 1 g. :)

--Brian
 
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Yuri_Armstrong

Guest
This is why we need the CAM (centrifuge accomadation module) on the ISS. I think the best science that can be done right now involves using the CAM: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifuge ... ons_Module

Expose a variety of biological specimens to artificial gravity levels between 0.01g and 2g.
Simultaneously provide two different artificial gravity levels.
Provide partial g and hyper g environment for specimens to investigate altered gravity effects and g-thresholds.
Provide short duration and partial g and hyper g environment for specimens to investigate temporal effects of gravity exposure.
Provide Earth simulation environment on ISS to isolate microgravity effects on specimens.
Provide Earth simulation environment on ISS to allow specimens to recover from microgravity effects.
Provide in situ 1g controls for specimens in micro-gravity.

We have decades of microgravity research, but very little on artificial gravity. Let's make some real progress and get the CAM up there. I can understand cancelling the hab module and the CRV, but cancelling CAM has to be the greatest ISS sin comitted of them all!
 
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dwight_looi

Guest
The easiest and least complicated way to get artificial gravity is to simply reel out the habitation module from the propulsion module using a long tether and have the two rotate about their center of gravity at a relatively slow rate.

Regardless of whether you are using a chemical or nuclear engine, the earth escape motor will burn for no more than a few minutes to a couple of days. It doesn't mater that you don't have artificial gravity for that duration. Once the motor shuts down, you reel out the human housing portion of the vehicle from the engine/fuel tanks. Then, using attitude control thrusters, you make them rotate about their common center of gravity. You may want to align the axis of rotation towards earth such that the communication antennas will always point earthwards even if they are spinning around in circles. As Mars looms, you reel them back together, stop the spin, reorient the tail of the vehicle towards the red planet and fire the engine for the Martian orbital injection burn.

This is simple because it does not involve and things rubbing against each other or having to run cables through a rotating hub as you would with a centrifuge. It also does not involve the high minimum mass and volume of a "ring" shaped vehicle. Most importantly, we can easily experiment with it in LEO. Just tether two Dragons or Soyuz capsules together, use their orbital maneuver thrusts to impart the spin and just have astronauts live in there for a few days. Once we are happy with that, we attached a few "cargo" modules to the capsules so they have food and water for a few months and repeat the same thing.
 
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