Artificial Gravity, When in Space we could create
Artificial gravity for comfort and health benefits
Artificial Gravity: A New Spin on an Old Idea
By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
posted: 25 November 2004
08:01 am ET
Keeping an astronaut crew in tip-top shape during lengthy treks to and from distant Mars
may demand portable gravity.
There’s need for long-duration space travelers to counter such debilitating effects
as muscle atrophy, bone loss, cardiovascular deconditioning and balance disorders --
effects seen in humans as they cope with stints in microgravity.
Over the decades, artificial gravity research has been an on-again, off-again proposition.
But in the last few years, and propelled by NASA’s new Moon, Mars and beyond
exploration mandate, artificial gravity studies are now being developed, this time with a
new spin.
Search for the universal antidote
"It’s an idea whose time has come around and around and around," explained
Laurence Young, the Apollo Program Professor of Astronautics at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Young is also a professor of health sciences and technology and has long studied the role
that artificial gravity might play to keep humans from weakening while slipping through
interplanetary space.
"For the first time since I began working on this in the 1960s, I think it is being
taken seriously. We have a critical mass of really good people working on it…and
support in Washington, D.C.," Young said.
Young told SPACE.com that in the past, as space life scientists began to realize there
were astronaut health issues, NASA started looking for quick, individual solutions. Tread
mills, in-flight exercise, drugs -- all these and other remedies were flown to look at
treating one body system at a time.
Meanwhile, Russian specialists studying their cadre of cosmonauts that had spent far
longer time in Earth orbit were pointing out that the medical issues being encountered
would not be easy to solve.
Starting with the Shuttle/Mir program that ran from 1995 into 1998, Young said, the search
for a "universal antidote" began to move up the priority ladder.
G-whiz image
One issue that has worked against artificial gravity advocates in the past has been the
vision of a huge, rotating spacecraft that gives its inhabitants a one-gravity condition
like here on Earth. And movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey helped cement that
"G-whiz" image into the space psyche. But large meant expensive, and also gave
engineers design worries, Young related.
In recent years, the idea has started to emerge that a short radius centrifuge contained
within a spacecraft may be far more attractive. "You go into it for a workout. You
get your G-tolerance buildup for a certain period of time, daily or a few times a week.
That started to sound attractive to the engineers," Young said.
Nevertheless, in taking this approach, there are still issues to be reckoned with.
Support by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) in Houston, Texas is
allowing Young, MIT colleague Thomas Jarchow, and others to delve into short-radius
centrifugation of individuals and potential side effects -- such as motion sickness,
interference with cognitive and motor function caused by head movements while rotating at
180 degrees a second.
Moreover, research is also needed to assess whether or not short radius centrifuge
workouts produce the needed effects on bone, muscle and fluids in the body necessary to
help curb space deconditioning.
Given that it has become legitimate to start talking about a no-nonsense three-year long
humans-to-Mars effort, Young said, suddenly NASA and a lot of university researchers are
confronting key artificial gravity-related questions, and the need to come up with answers
fairly soon.
International artificial gravity project
A major undertaking in artificial gravity research is being prepared at the University of
Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) at Galveston, overseen by NASA’s Johnson Space Center in
Houston, Texas.
Starting next year at UTMB, a corps of individuals will partake in bed rest studies that
reproduce the effects of weightlessness, with half that group also rotated once a day on a
centrifuge.
The new centrifuge has been built for NASA by Wyle Laboratories, headquartered in El
Segundo, California, for use in studying the effects of artificial gravity as a
countermeasure to the negative effects of long-term microgravity on the human body. That
newly-built centrifuge has recently been installed at UTMB. "It’s a really
beautiful device," Young said.
Young is co-investigator for the work, teamed with William Paloski, principal scientist,
in the Human Adaptation and Countermeasures Office at the NASA Johnson Space Center.
The NASA-sponsored research is divided into two phases. The first phase is using the short
radius centrifuge -- which has a radius of 10 feet (three meters) radius to support NASA's
Artificial Gravity Pilot Study. A second phase will include significant enhancements to
the centrifuge design to provide support for a multinational artificial gravity project
that would involve Germany and Russia, Young added.
The Artificial Gravity Project Pilot Study involves test subjects being placed in a six
degree head-down bed-rest position which simulates the effects of microgravity on a human
body. The test subjects are then positioned in the short radius centrifuge and subjected
up to 2.5 Gs at their feet to simulate a gravity environment.
"As far as I’m concerned," Young concluded, "the purpose of all these
studies is not to show how to use artificial gravity. Rather, it is to determine whether
or not artificial gravity is an acceptable solution."
Of mice and microgravity
Carrying out artificial gravity experiments in space would be ideal, particularly doing
them onboard the International Space Station. Discussions are underway in this regard, but
have not yet been given a go-ahead.
In the meantime, enter the Mars Gravity Biosatellite Program. The venture is a highly
student-driven initiative, combining the talents of three leading universities: MIT (lead
group), the University of Washington in Seattle, and the University of Queensland,
Australia.
The Mars Gravity Biosatellite Program is a mission to study the effects of Martian gravity
on mammals. Data gleaned from the orbiting spacecraft would contribute to fundamental
space biology, with the intent to advance the human exploration of space.
"One of the big questions is what level of artificial gravity would you need going to
Mars," said Paul Wooster, program manager for the project, as well as research
scientist in MIT’s Space Systems Laboratory.
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