76
votes
Accepted
Is the zero gravity experienced in ISS the "artificial" kind?
Gravity is everywhere. There is never any actual true "zero gravity" in the universe.
But if you're in freefall - meaning following gravity's pull rather than resisting it, or being blocked ...
- 1,886
54
votes
Accepted
Why can't spaceships just accelerate to create gravity?
Constant acceleration requires energy. Our current rocket engines need to use propellant to provide that energy. And there just cannot be enough propellant to generate artificial gravity for any ...
- 5,128
46
votes
Why can't spaceships just accelerate to create gravity?
jkavalik gives the right answer. But to put this in perspective, let me add some numbers.
Let's say, we use a battery of state-of-the-art ion drives to retain a semi-comfortable, Martian level of ...
- 55k
38
votes
When staying indoors, can missing gravity be replaced with blowing air?
in a building or closed vehicle on another planet, maybe air pressure could be used to imitate gravity
There is no need to imitate gravity on another planet, because planets have gravity. Of course, ...
- 18.6k
31
votes
Accepted
Besides health benefits, what are the advantages of including inertial gravity sections on spaceships?
The presence of gravity simplifies a number of common processes. Some examples:
Separating liquids from gasses, eg. getting the water out of the air after you take a shower, or removing the hydrogen ...
- 15.3k
28
votes
Accepted
Was the Space Shuttle ever rotated to induce artificial gravity?
There are several reasons not to do this:
Artificial gravity in such a small space is not very pleasant. You'll get a noticeable difference in gravity in different places, which makes it difficult ...
- 128k
27
votes
Qualitative differences between gravity and a spinning habitat
First, I'll adopt terminology from Ringworld: "spinward" is in the direction of spin, and "antispinward" is opposite the direction of spin. And I'll say a bit about the Coriolis equation, but then go ...
- 18.3k
26
votes
Is the zero gravity experienced in ISS the "artificial" kind?
Gravity has infinite range, so there is nowhere in the universe where you can be free from its influence. Sure, there are places such as supervoids where the influence of gravity will be very little, ...
- 6,458
25
votes
Is is possible to generate centrifugal gravity by doing donuts?
Thrust won't generate gravity, but it will produce acceleration which may be indistinguishable from gravity to an occupant. Yes, it's possible to simulate gravity by having a spaceship constantly ...
- 17.5k
23
votes
Besides health benefits, what are the advantages of including inertial gravity sections on spaceships?
It would help you to learn which plants can grow properly in a greenhouse on the moon or Mars. When a seed germinates, the root starts growing downward with gravity, and the shoot grows upward to the ...
- 48k
17
votes
Was the Space Shuttle ever rotated to induce artificial gravity?
The highest rotational rate ever achieved by a shuttle in orbit was only 3 degrees/second (approximate). This was inadvertently caused when Mission Control uplinked a bad state vector during crew ...
- 182k
16
votes
When staying indoors, can missing gravity be replaced with blowing air?
While not strong enough to produce "artificial gravity" in a microgravity environment such as an orbital space station (eg ISS), it should still be noted that air circulation, and ...
- 18.8k
14
votes
Accepted
What happens if you jump on a "spin ship"?
We must remember that there is no spoon gravity here and that as soon as our astronaut is no longer in contact with the floor they must have an essentially straight line trajectory.
Below is a ...
- 149k
14
votes
Accepted
Is it possible for an Orion drive-based spaceship to experience smooth artificial gravity?
You need to realize that the ship is not accelerated by the atomic blast, it is accelerated by the springs(*) that exist between the push plate and the ship. I.e. while the push plate experiences ...
12
votes
Accepted
Radial variation of atmospheric pressure in rotating O'Neill cylinder-like ship? (Rendezvous with Rama)
The full problem of an O'Neill cylinder is pretty tough to solve.
1. A simple approach
Analytically, one would assume to be in hydrostatic equilibrium, without fluid motion on the surface of the O'...
- 2,965
11
votes
Besides health benefits, what are the advantages of including inertial gravity sections on spaceships?
Having a facility to investigate the effect of variable gravity levels would be very interesting from a scientific perspective.
Some of the questions that might be worth finding the answers to are:
...
- 9,323
10
votes
Why can't spaceships just accelerate to create gravity?
Basically, we just don't have engines that can accelerate at 1G, or anywhere near that, for more than a few minutes. Not only do we not currently have such engines, we aren't even sure when we will. ...
- 4,566
10
votes
Accepted
Why is tethered artificial gravity hardly ever considered?
Tethering two habitable modules together splits your already cramped living space into two smaller spaces that can't be easily traversed; this means a lot of equipment like life support and bathroom ...
- 169k
10
votes
Can birds fly inside an O'Neill cylinder?
You're forgetting about the air. Thanks to drag, the air inside the cylinder will have essentially the same reference frame as the cylinder itself. So a bird (or plane) flying parallel to the axis ...
- 4,566
10
votes
Is it possible for an Orion drive-based spaceship to experience smooth artificial gravity?
The short answer is to use a lot of pulses/second. They'll more or less average out into a steady(ish) push.
That's why a 12 cylinder engine vibrates far less than a 1 cylinder engine.
- 2,598
9
votes
How much gravity is actually needed to avoid serious health consequences?
We do not know yet. The main issue is a lack of empirical data.
There are only four specially trained volunteers with more than one year exposure to microgravity. We'd need hundreds of volunteers ...
- 2,443
8
votes
Why is tethered artificial gravity hardly ever considered?
There's no need for simulated gravity in human spaceflight the next several decades. It might be of interest to basic biological research, but it's up to them to buy a biological research station in ...
- 27k
8
votes
Is it possible to create artificial gravity in a habitat in space, or on another planet or moon without spinning the hull of the habitat
Short answer: No, we cannot create a stationary habitat that has a gravity-like force that does not depend on motion.
When we "feel" the force of gravity, what we actually feel is the ground pushing ...
- 5,626
8
votes
Could an aircraft ever simulate Martian gravity perpendicular to the aircraft's floor?
Okay, since the agreement seems to be that this is on topic and I'm a pilot I'll take a shot. The quick answer is yes, because the simulated gravity is generated from the airplane's lift, other forces ...
- 20.3k
8
votes
Is the zero gravity experienced in ISS the "artificial" kind?
The right way to think about it is that, always and everywhere, weightlessness is the "artificial" kind. It is certainly true that the gravitational field is very weak far from any masses, ...
- 11k
7
votes
Accepted
How would a drone work in centrifugal force generated "gravity"?
This is a really interesting question!
The navigation system of the drone will have to grapple with being in a rotating frame.
tl;dr: While the drop-off of gravity with altitude would be mild and ...
- 149k
7
votes
Is it possible for an Orion drive-based spaceship to experience smooth artificial gravity?
Wikipedia's long article says:
The pusher plate would be mounted on large two-stage shock absorbers that would smoothly transmit acceleration to the rest of the spacecraft.
A diagram there confirms ...
- 12.2k
7
votes
How do you design a spacecraft with a spinning section for "artificial gravity"?
Your title question is very broad, but as-written it seems restricted to "how do I plumb between two places rotating with respect to one another?"
There's a rotating house in La Mesa, CA ...
- 11.3k
6
votes
How much gravity is actually needed to avoid serious health consequences?
We don't know.
We currently only have good data for how humans are doing in 9.81 m/s² or in 0 m/s² acceleration.
The only case where humans were ever exposed to anything between 1g and 0g for longer ...
- 9,326
6
votes
Accepted
static energy artificial gravity
That works only as long as the two charge carriers (water and the balloon, for example) don't touch each other. When they do, the charges equalize and the attracting force drops to 0.
Also, a static ...
- 128k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible