why artificial gravity is not possible?

[wllsrvive]

What are some of the obstacles scientist face with the idea of creating artificial gravity for a space station?

 

[theridane]

Cash.

(seriously... everything else is just a couple gallons of midnight oil)

 

[csmyth3025]

What are some of the obstacles scientist face with the idea of creating artificial gravity for a space station?

Essentially, Theridane is right. The only practical way of generating artificial gravity in a space station is, as far as I know, to rotate it so that the occupants (and everything else) are "pressed outwards" against the exterior walls by centrifugal force. In order to do so without making the occupants sick (think of a merry-go-round), the station has to rotate slowly (less than 2 rpm). To create the illusion of gravity, the occupants have to be fairly far from the center. Wikipedia has a good explanatory article on this idea here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_Gravity

Basically, constructing a space station that's big enough to have useful "gravity" and structurally strong enough to take the stress caused by the rotation would cost more than linking together a bunch of thin-shelled modules such as has been done with the ISS.

Chris

 

[kelvinzero]

I think the big problem is that rotating a station to give it gravity would interfere with everything we currently want to do on a station.

It would make assembly and extention much harder.
It would make docking and repairs harder and riskier.
Currently almost the only use for a station is for experiments in microgravity. If it spins, very few of the labs would have microgravity any more.

However I still quite like the idea of spin for long term deep space missions, such as mentioned in Zubrin's mars direct plan.

In the shorter term it would be great to see experiments establishing how long term exposure to moon or mars gravity affects our health compared to zero-g. Perhaps if we get the Orion CRV, one of its experiments could be to detach it from the ISS with a crew and some sort of counterweight on a long tether (extended life support?) to see how people fare from a few months at moon/mars gravity levels.

 

[a_lost_packet_]

What are some of the obstacles scientist face with the idea of creating artificial gravity for a space station?

I assume you mean "conventional" artificial gravity like that provided by a sufficiently large, rotating habitat. If so, then much of what you want to know can be answered in the wiki csmyth3025 linked.

If you're referring to some sort of gravity field, plate or amplifier, that's not possible right now because we just don't know what communicates "gravity" or entirely what it is. It does appear that it's a one-way deal though. One can't create "anti-gravity" in any real sense of the word. But, discovering what particle or particles communicate mass or gravity, would go a long way towards helping develop something that may be a workable system. That'd be nice. I'm afraid that's probably a few hundred years away in our technological capabilities, if it's even possible.

Edit-Add - Note: One also has to take into the account of the necessary materials to construct something like a rotating space-station ala 2001 - A Space Odyssey. The materials must endure quite a bit of stress and the engineering would be very complex. Couple that idea with the difficulty of even supplying a relatively tiny ISS and you can see how such a space-station is beyond our current capabilities.