That Pesky No Gravity Problem

[flyer456654]

I got to thinking yesterday about the problem with micro gravity. Everyone always says that the loss of bone mass and muscle mass is a major issue and has to be figured out, and I agree. While one way trips to Mars/Moon would be fine, if we wanted to return to earth there would have to be an intensive program to develop the lossed body structures. As I was thinking about this, I had a lightbulb moment. This idea might not be new (i don't know if anyone has thought about it) but it might be interesting to do a thought experiment on.

Lets assume we have 0 gravity. We are in a can, called a spaceship. Now most people would say spin the darn thing to create gravity, and I have to disagree with this. There are just WAY to many things that need to be considered to spin an object, keep it on track, and still be able to look out the window. My solution, use magnets. The system would work like this. The floor of the spacecraft/habitat would have a magnetic field on it. The suits that the astronauts use would have small, metal fibers in them. The floor magnet would pull the metal fibers toward it providing downward force on the astronaut that would simulate gravity.

There are some cool bonuses to this too. You might be able to encompass the entire ship in a magnetic field to protect from that pesky sun radiation, solving another major problem. If you make tools and materials out of a metal that is attracted to magnets, you could create a working environment very similar to earth by having an artificial gravity placed on all objects onboard the ship. You wouldn't have to spin the ship, meaning that you could have windows and not get sick.

There is a problem though. The attraction would be weaker the further away from the magnet you were. This can be solved two different ways. First, have a magnet on the roof too that repels the suits. The second, have less metal threads in the feet and more toward the head. Besides that, I think that this would be a great way to combat the gravity issue. This system could also be used on mars, the moon, and any other place in the cosmos (unless the fine structure of physics changes to not allow it )

Now I turn this over to you all. I know very little about physics...and anything scientific. Do you see issues with this? If so how would you address them? Enjoy!!!

 

[MeteorWayne]

Theres several discussions of this in Space Business and Technology. I'll merge this into the best one.

 

[flyer456654]

Thanks Wayne

 

[crazyeddie]

My solution, use magnets. The system would work like this. The floor of the spacecraft/habitat would have a magnetic field on it. The suits that the astronauts use would have small, metal fibers in them. The floor magnet would pull the metal fibers toward it providing downward force on the astronaut that would simulate gravity.

magnetic attraction is nothing at all like gravitational attraction, since there is no inertia involved, and so it would do nothing to solve the bone loss problem, because there would be no actual weight to stress the bones and muscles.

 

[MeteorWayne]

eddie's absolutely right. The purpose of artificial gravity is not to keep you stuck to the ground. Who cares. Astronauts enjoys being able to fly without effort.

The point is to keep your bones and body healthy. That requires a load on all the bones so that the normal process of destruction and reconstruction of the bones works close to normally. That's artificial gravity.

Magnetic boots keep you stuck to the ground, which is unimportant.

 

[flyer456654]

Perhaps you misread, I am talking about an entire suit, not just boots. Like a jumpsuit with a hoodie that has metal fibers attached to it. This would distribute the weight around the entire body, just like you said needed to happen. The boots would have the least amount of fibers since they would be closest to the ground and the hoodie would have the most since it is furthest from the ground. This would essentially pull the entire body towards the ground. I guess an issue with this is the need to sit. By sitting, you would be bringing the upper portions of the body closer to the magnet which would increase the load to the upper portion. So i guess an advanced computer system would have to regulate a series of electromagnets on the ground to keep the effect stable in all positions. Would this solve the problem?

 

[Yuri_Armstrong]

This magnetic field you're talking about would just keep the astronauts stuck to the ground, it wouldn't provide the weight needed to maintain good bone and muscle health.

The best way, by far, to simulate gravity is to use centrifugal force. You just need the ship to be large enough and spinning slow enough so the crew does not become sick. This is established space engineering and I'm not sure why you have such a problem with this.

 

[neilsox]

I sort of agree. The bones would not feel stress directly, but the the clothing might "weigh" 80 kilograms in the magnetic field, so it would stretch the skin toward the deck, which would transfer some of the force to the bones and organs = which might reduce bone loss, some, but probably not enough. The clothing would be uncomfortable, I think, especially if we think clothing that "weighs" 150% of the body weight. The system can be tested on Earth's surface, and might be a great muscle builder, except falling down would put the most magnetic part of the clothing near the deck, possibly causing serious injury, unless the deck was very well padded or sensors could detect that someone was falling and cut off the field before they hit the deck = that should be possible, but would be a big surprise to other persons not falling. The field could be cut off only in the zones, close to the person falling, but that does make the system complicated. It might be great for a person traveling to a station in the upper atmosphere of Jupiter, where the gravity will be more than double Earth at sea level. The strong magnetic field likely is not harmful, as some people think it has therapeutic value. My son worked several thousand hours near a a one Tesla magnet in a MRI = magnetic resonance imaging, apparently without ill effects except tangled watch springs and partly erased magnetic tapes.

 

[flyer456654]

Thank you guys. I just got to thinking why this method has not been implamented yet...obviously there are major issues that I did not know about. I guess the only way to really do it is centifuge work or the tethering method.

 

[Yuri_Armstrong]

Or just get to where we need to go faster and ignore the zero g health effects. Its actually a lot of fun

 

[neutrino78x]

Well beyond the atrophy of the human body, the acceleration of gravity is also a lot more convenient. You don't have to worry about objects floating away, you don't have to worry about food and other contaminants getting in to equipment, you don't have to strap yourself in to sleep, etc. Definitely, if you have a space ship intended for long voyages, where people spend more than a year in space, you should make a torus and spin the ship.

--Brian

 

[Technetium]

In a sense it could help keep you attached to things.
For example, Doing a space walk, You could walk around the shell of a spaceship or something.

But like the others said. It doesn't have the same effect of gravity.

 

[neilsox]

A torus is donut shaped or perhaps hula hoop shaped. Only a few percent of the interior is approximately level = it is up hill as you move away from the center line = much of the volume is not very usable. A space walk on the outside of the inner surface is like walking an endless ridge = you might slide off if you strayed more than a few meters from the center line = dangerous as you would depart the torus rapidly.
I like two craft tethered together about one kilometer apart as the floor space can be optimised with rather low ceilings. Space walks are completely impractical except on the roof over the two ceilings. One kilometer or more also means the coriolis effects are barely noticeable. One craft can be at 0.38 g and the other at a higher g if the tether is strong enough. The artificial gravity is inversely proportional to the mass of each craft. If a Vishmir engine or equivalent accelerates the crafts in any direction other than along the axis of rotation the gravity rises to perhaps 0.46g for about one minute then falls for about one minute to about 0.26g. That is assuming the engine accelerates the crafts at about 0.14 g. This is also true of O'Neill cylinders and torus. Neil