It's hard with gravity, but even worse without it
Seen more than once in the movies, “turning on” gravity on board a spacecraft traveling in outer space looks very cool. Except that their creators almost never explain how it's done. Sometimes, as in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1) or the newer Passengers, it is shown that the ship must be rotated to simulate gravity.
One can ask somewhat provocatively - why is gravity needed on board a spacecraft at all? After all, it is easier without general gravity, people get tired less, things carried weigh nothing, and many tasks require much less physical effort.
It turns out, however, that this effort, associated with the constant overcoming of gravity, is extremely necessary for us and our body. No gravityAstronauts have long been proven to experience bone and muscle loss. Astronauts on the ISS exercise, struggle with muscle weakness and bone loss, but still lose bone mass in space. They need to get two to three hours of exercise a day to maintain muscle mass and cardiovascular health. Moreover, not only these elements, directly related to the load on the body, are affected by the absence of gravity. There are problems with maintaining balance, the body is dehydrated. And this is just the beginning of the problems.
It turns out that he, too, is getting weaker. Some immune cells cannot do their job and the red blood cells die. It causes kidney stones and weakens the heart. A group of scientists from Russia and Canada analyzed the consequences of recent years microgravity on the composition of proteins in blood samples of eighteen Russian cosmonauts who lived on the International Space Station for half a year. The results showed that in weightlessness the immune system behaves in the same way as when the body is infected, because the human body does not know what to do and tries to activate all possible defense systems.
Chance in centrifugal force
So we already know very well that no gravity it is not good, even dangerous to health. And now what? Not only filmmakers, but also researchers see an opportunity in centrifugal force. To be kind forces of inertia, it mimics the action of gravity, effectively acting in a direction opposite to the center of the inertial frame of reference.
Applicability has been researched for many years. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for example, former astronaut Lawrence Young tested a centrifuge, which was somewhat reminiscent of a vision from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. People lie on their side on the platform, pushing the inertial structure that rotates.
Since we know that centrifugal force can at least partially replace gravity, why don't we build ships this turn? Well, it turns out that not everything is so simple, because, firstly, such ships would have to be much larger than those that we are building, and each additional kilogram of mass carried into space costs a lot.
Consider, for example, the International Space Station as a benchmark for comparisons and evaluations. It is about the size of a football field, but the living quarters are only a fraction of its size.
Simulate gravity In this case, the centrifugal force can be approached in two ways. Or each element would rotate separately, which would create small systems, but then, as experts note, this could be due to not always pleasant impressions for astronauts, who could, for example, feel a different gravity in your legs than in your upper body. In a larger version, the entire ISS would rotate, which, of course, would have to be configured differently, rather like a ring (2). At the moment, building such a structure would mean huge costs and seems unrealistic.
2. Vision of an orbital ring providing artificial gravity
However, there are other ideas as well. for example, a group of scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder is working on a solution with somewhat less ambition. Instead of measuring "recreating gravity," scientists are focusing on addressing the health problems associated with the lack of gravity in space.
As conceived by the Boulder researchers, astronauts could crawl into special rooms for several hours a day to get a daily dose of gravity, which should solve health problems. The subjects are placed on a metal platform similar to a hospital trolley (3). This is called a centrifuge that rotates at an uneven speed. The angular velocity generated by the centrifuge pushes the person's legs towards the base of the platform, as if they were standing under their own weight.
3. Device tested at the University of Boulder.
Unfortunately, this type of exercise is inevitably associated with nausea. The researchers set out to find out if nausea really is an inherent price tag associated with it. artificial gravity. Can astronauts train their bodies to be ready for additional G-forces? At the end of the tenth session of the volunteers, all subjects were spinning at an average speed of about seventeen revolutions per minute without any unpleasant consequences, nausea, etc. This is a significant achievement.
There are alternative ideas for gravity on a ship. These include, for example, the Canadian Type System Design (LBNP), which itself creates ballast around a person's waist, creating a feeling of heaviness in the lower body. But is it enough for a person to avoid the consequences of space flight, which are unpleasant for health? Unfortunately, this is not accurate.
