Why artificial gravity is not possible?

In summary: Firstly, you need to perpetually apply a force to the people inside equal to the rate of acceleration multiplied by their mass in order to provide the desired effect. Secondly, this would require an incredibly powerful engine to continually accelerate the space station, and even then it's doubtful that it would be practical - space stations have a limited amount of fuel and eventually they'll run out. Alternatively you could try using a rotating space station, but this would require finding a way to keep the station rotating at a certain speed without it breaking apart. Finally, there's the question of what the mass of the object needs to be in order to create the desired effect. This can be incredibly difficult - for example, if you wanted to create gravity on Earth, you would need
  • #141
Creating artificial gravity by rotational force, would make it hard to dock any external vehicle. Also the outward force would make outside repairs and first hand observations near impossible. Stopping and starting the rotation for these purposes would also become a fuel consumption issue.
If you had something resembling jacks (the toy) it would be near impossible to travel to other compartments.
If you were to use a tube... traveling fore and aft would be easy but if you were to have to walk port and starboard you'd be walking up hill (a bit tiring if your working) before anyone says it, i know a octagon would be better suited for this, but the principal is the same.
Even the act of moving around one compartment could throw off the balance of the station in a whole causing a wobble (not good)
I do not know if this would effect the body over time, but, with gravity your being pulled more at your feet than your head. with centrifugal force it is the opposite. I'm thinking this may cause issues with blood circulation.

Best bet, actual gravity. (as far as a stationary body is concerned) use an extremely high density material (much like a black hole is small and dense) this would only work on a stationary object in orbit not for a craft traveling out (as the added mass would make accelleration near impossible)
(benifits if this weren't near impossible)
no bone degeneration
less worry about flying off the body or loosing tools
100% gravity all the time without expending energy
possibility of an atmosphere in the event of a breach in the hull
heat...
(drawbacks)
more damage from space debris (rocks, manmade, and yes even sand)
possibly a feeling of being heavier at your feet than your head(feet would be quite near the center of the object while your head in comparison would be signifigantly further away) This occurs on Earth but is not noticiced as we are further from the center of mass.

Come to think of it, a saucer would be an appropriate shape for something like this (hooray for sci-fi giving visuals everyone can understand without the practical science included)

(major example: "stonehenge apocalypse" where they use a single device to try interrupting a signal across several spectrums to almost the point of emiting radiation...(radio,light,infared, ect)...it's total bs sometimes lol)
 
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  • #142
DaveC426913 said:
I present one. In a spinning station of any practical size, the Coriolis Force will be present, and in fact, quite observable.
Would this force be what i described by feeling heavier at top than bottom?
Ive experienced this feeling first hand in a centrifuge... trying to stand sideways on an amusement park ride. (the one that the whole room spins and the floor drops away).
i also learned that gravity does not stop working with application of centrifugal force (and man did it hurt)
 
  • #143
nismaratwork said:
I'm not sure that's necessarily true... consider VASIMIR for instance. I think my point about a black hole is that it can scale beyond our capacity to manage it by its very nature. Even antimatter would be devastating, but it would annihilate, killl everyone... the end! A black hole wouldn't explode... in fact it would persist and potentially GROW. I agree with you in general, but a black hole is a unique... object... and anything that has the capacity to scale between microscopic and galactic is fundamentally dangerous in ways no other technology I can think of is.
a black hole is not something that can be created (by other than natural methods)
it would be an impossibility to instantly create a "mini black hole"
a black hole is an area of mass that is dense enough that it's effect on gravity is so strong light cannot break orbit (tho this also allows for light to break the speed of light barrier)

without the available mass a true black hole would be feasibly impossible. there may be some mathematical trick to make it occur on paper, but, I'm thinking that equation making it possible does not account for the nearly unmeasurable amount of mass surrounding the "mathematical" anomaly... much like the $10 and 3 tennants trick.
 
  • #144
dj cornbread said:
Creating artificial gravity by rotational force, would make it hard to dock any external vehicle.
This is elementary. You dock at the hub. Never seen 2001?

dj cornbread said:
Also the outward force would make outside repairs and first hand observations near impossible.
No, it would only make it as difficult as it would be to repair the underside of a highway overpass (without touching the ground.).


dj cornbread said:
If you had something resembling jacks (the toy) it would be near impossible to travel to other compartments.
Why? It would be no more difficult than doing the same thing here on Earth.

dj cornbread said:
If you were to use a tube... traveling fore and aft would be easy but if you were to have to walk port and starboard you'd be walking up hill (a bit tiring if your working) before anyone says it, i know a octagon would be better suited for this, but the principal is the same.
Why would you have to walk up any hill?


dj cornbread said:
Even the act of moving around one compartment could throw off the balance of the station in a whole causing a wobble (not good)
Well, this is the first thing you've said that makes sense. Yes, a space station would want to be large enough that people walking around in it didn't adversly affect its rotation.


dj cornbread said:
I do not know if this would effect the body over time, but, with gravity your being pulled more at your feet than your head.
The magnitude is zero for all but the best instruments.


dj cornbread said:
with centrifugal force it is the opposite. I'm thinking this may cause issues with blood circulation.
Nah.
dj cornbread said:
Best bet, actual gravity. (as far as a stationary body is concerned) use an extremely high density material (much like a black hole is small and dense)
This does not work. You'd have monstrous gradients between head and foot.


dj cornbread said:
less worry about flying off the body or loosing tools
No, big risk of both, because the gradient is so high. For gravity to be only 100% at your feet, it might be orders of magnitude smaker at your head. i.e. Pick up a 1/2lb wrench from the floor - by the time you lift it to your eye level, it weighs 1/100th of a pound and goes flying out of your hand.

dj cornbread said:
100% gravity all the time without expending energy
No. 100% gravity at a single altitude, high degree of variance in gravity everywhere else.


dj cornbread said:
(major example: "stonehenge apocalypse" where they use a single device to try interrupting a signal across several spectrums to almost the point of emiting radiation...(radio,light,infared, ect)...it's total bs sometimes lol)
This string of words makes no sense at all. I can't tell what you're saying, let alone what it has to do with artificial gravity.
 
  • #145
Google... it teaches us, but it makes us so sad too...

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

...The conclusion is a race for possession of the device which controls both the pyramid in Maine and the electromagnetic terraforming machine at Stonehenge.

*shooting pain through head*

dj cornbread: You're wrong when you make sense, or at least applying scales oddly. I certainly haven't been advocating the notion of black holes as useable, and it may be that humans never create one. I'll give you one example of how you could make a stellar-mass black hole however:

Find a neutron (or whatever level of degeneracy) star VERY close to its Chandrasekhar Limit... then add mass through whatever means you can. This assumes that I'm right, and DaveC isn't (Not a great bet), and in fact we're not able to use some manner of technology to crush a soda-pop can past its Chandrasekhar Limit.

You clearly didn't read the thread, and you seem to be inventing things out of whole cloth.
 
  • #146
DaveC426913 said:
This is elementary. You dock at the hub. Never seen 2001?
I have, but the expense of energy would be too much to keep one part stable with another rotating, not to mention the transfer from stable to centrifuge (eigther a harsh transition, or an energy waste "gradual transition"

No, it would only make it as difficult as it would be to repair the underside of a highway overpass (without touching the ground.).
Is the underside of an overpass the darkness of space, and an almost never ending trip death? i would prefer the thought of splat=dead over suffocation, and your tools don't stop at the ground so you can retrieve them, nor can you ride to the store if you loose one to a car windshield.


Why? It would be no more difficult than doing the same thing here on Earth.
up would become down and you'd get quite disoriented between transition from one side to the next

Why would you have to walk up any hill?
look at a hampster wheel, the hapster running the circle is moving up an incline, now also take into account nourishment is usually (not plentifull) you'd get a bit tired a bit quicker, so the small inclines would make a large impact.


Well, this is the first thing you've said that makes sense. Yes, a space station would want to be large enough that people walking around in it didn't adversly affect its rotation.
small solution, computer controlled water ballasting

The magnitude is zero for all but the best instruments.
tho it is sill present none-the-less


Nah.
our bodies are wired for a specific planet(pull of gravity, atmospheric pressure ,average temperature, o2 mix) if you throw the slightest kink in that there are big consequences (ABC's most fragile systems and first checked by ANY "med") since the astronaut is not choking, and I am pretty sure pressure and o2 are fine, this would leave circulatory as the best option for something to go awry (specially in the brain or bones).

This does not work. You'd have monstrous gradients between head and foot.
I think i mentioned this

No, big risk of both, because the gradient is so high. For gravity to be only 100% at your feet, it might be orders of magnitude smaker at your head. i.e. Pick up a 1/2lb wrench from the floor - by the time you lift it to your eye level, it weighs 1/100th of a pound and goes flying out of your hand.
OK so i had a dense moment(pun intended) that would put a great kink in any plan... litterally light headed


No. 100% gravity at a single altitude, high degree of variance in gravity everywhere else.
kinda like standing on a pulsar (providing it was not moving so damn fast)


This string of words makes no sense at all. I can't tell what you're saying, let alone what it has to do with artificial gravity.
It was stating the type of physics people are learning nowadays, "hollywood physics" (tho i agree i do not state things well, I am more of a thinking in pictures kinda person, not words)

Quick question tho... since we are on the topic of artificial gravity... how can we even begin to discuss it? we do not know how gravity works yet, only what it does. like a crazy ex girlfriend... (you know what will happen but not why or how)... lol, i had to...

nismaratwork: this thread... most of it appeared a bit argumentitive, so, i did skim. and the wiki for that movie should say "ha, ha, you spent one,some-odd hours watching this..."
I was replying to whomever was using it for (i think) open ended acceleration or for use as a source of gravity... honestly I am on a 24 hour php/javascript/sql scripting binge (probably noticable in my use of these $rarr; () ← so i know I am leaving it up to whatever comes first in this no-sleep head of mine.)

As far as the "mini Black hole" goes, i think there is a distinct difference between the real thing and the "mini" compressing matter to a certain point happens in both, one is capable of continuing to grow by gravity the other is a temporary cesation (or 99.9% cessation, i forget) of all movement in a few atoms (the dark part meaning not that light is trapped by gravity but that for that moment they cannot expel any further energy, no electro magnetic field, to push away from other atoms, tho in a millionth of a second they are "released" from one another as unlike a true black hole there is not enough gravity to overcome this separation) oh, and the antimatter counterpart ditching town then being replaced, yadda, yadda... all I'm saying is there not one in the same, tho there are some similarities... (about the same as human/monkey similarities. tho, one can shape its surroundings, the other is (near) controlled by them, but, you get my drift. mini != gravity or potential energy)

ok time to sleep...whiew

cannot wait to come back and see this dissected like the last *sarcasm*
 
  • #147
Wait. you're got yourself in your quotes...

dj cornbread said:
I have, but the expense of energy would be too much to keep one part stable with another rotating, not to mention the transfer from stable to centrifuge (eigther a harsh transition, or an energy waste "gradual transition"
No. It's quite easy and natural. It's even easier than how they do it in 2001.

1] Point your spaceship at the axial "garage" door. Station (and door) is rotating, spaceship is not.
2] Fly in (attitude jets) and stop (attitude jets), hovering with the station still rotating around you.
3] Turn your spaceship 90 degrees to the right. (attitude jets)
4] Extend your landing gear (wheels). You are now floating weightless above a runway that is moving slowly underneath you.
5] Lower your spaceship (attitude jets) until your wheels touch the runway.
6] Apply your brakes. You will spin up to speed, gaining artifical gravity as you go.

This has taken exactly 4 micro bursts from your attitude jets. The bursts that can be of arbitrarily small impulse (and fuel consumption). Larger impulses simply make your landing faster. At no time does the spacecraft have to use any fuel to compensate for any opposing forces.


dj cornbread said:
our bodies are wired for a specific planet(pull of gravity, atmospheric pressure ,average temperature, o2 mix) if you throw the slightest kink in that there are big consequences (ABC's most fragile systems and first checked by ANY "med") since the astronaut is not choking, and I am pretty sure pressure and o2 are fine, this would leave circulatory as the best option for something to go awry (specially in the brain or bones).

dj cornbread said:
if you throw the slightest kink in that there are big consequences
This is far too general a claim to be relevant.

dj cornbread said:
this would leave circulatory as the best option for something to go awry
What does "best option" mean? Why must something go awry?

"If something were to go awry" is not at all the same as "something will go awry".


dj cornbread said:
Quick question tho... since we are on the topic of artificial gravity... how can we even begin to discuss it? we do not know how gravity works yet, only what it does.
For the purposes of living on a space station who cares how it works - we only care about simulating it.


dj cornbread said:
It was stating the type of physics people are learning nowadays, "hollywood physics"
Who is learning this? Do you know anyone? What does it have to do with the topic?

This is rhetorical; it has nothing to do with the topic. No need to elaborate.
 
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  • #148
dj cornbread said:
Quick question tho... since we are on the topic of artificial gravity... how can we even begin to discuss it? we do not know how gravity works yet, only what it does. like a crazy ex girlfriend... (you know what will happen but not why or how)... lol, i had to...

nismaratwork: this thread... most of it appeared a bit argumentitive, so, i did skim. and the wiki for that movie should say "ha, ha, you spent one,some-odd hours watching this..."
I was replying to whomever was using it for (i think) open ended acceleration or for use as a source of gravity... honestly I am on a 24 hour php/javascript/sql scripting binge (probably noticable in my use of these $rarr; () ← so i know I am leaving it up to whatever comes first in this no-sleep head of mine.)

As far as the "mini Black hole" goes, i think there is a distinct difference between the real thing and the "mini" compressing matter to a certain point happens in both, one is capable of continuing to grow by gravity the other is a temporary cesation (or 99.9% cessation, i forget) of all movement in a few atoms (the dark part meaning not that light is trapped by gravity but that for that moment they cannot expel any further energy, no electro magnetic field, to push away from other atoms, tho in a millionth of a second they are "released" from one another as unlike a true black hole there is not enough gravity to overcome this separation) oh, and the antimatter counterpart ditching town then being replaced, yadda, yadda... all I'm saying is there not one in the same, tho there are some similarities... (about the same as human/monkey similarities. tho, one can shape its surroundings, the other is (near) controlled by them, but, you get my drift. mini != gravity or potential energy)

ok time to sleep...whiew

cannot wait to come back and see this dissected like the last *sarcasm*

You need to read a lot, stay in school, and stop posting for the sake of posting.
 
  • #149
Hi,

in march of 2006 publish ESA tim experiments about gravitomagnetick London moment who
can increasse decreasse mas.

Knew enybody somtime about it?

Thank and PF 2011
 
  • #150
jaiii said:
Hi,

in march of 2006 publish ESA tim experiments about gravitomagnetick London moment who
can increasse decreasse mas.

Knew enybody somtime about it?

Thank and PF 2011

Can you post this... thing? From what I can decipher of what you've asked, the answer is that the kind of decrease in mass is... no.
 
  • #151
Yes in this experiments wos wrote that it is possible anti gravity but I think
in futhute if I decresse mass I can icreasse to.

In attachmen I sent this article.

BTW knew you new about it.
 

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  • #152
jaiii said:
Yes in this experiments wos wrote that it is possible anti gravity but I think
in futhute if I decresse mass I can icreasse to.

In attachmen I sent this article.

BTW knew you new about it.

I didn't know about, but I did read the article. Honestly, it didn't satisfy me, so I googled one of the authors, and found a wikipedia article which led me to...
http://arxiv.org/ftp/gr-qc/papers/0603/0603033.pdf

Which is over my head in too many areas for me to comment. I can only speak from past experience in learning this material, that this appears to be a personal theory which someone is exploring. I know of know link between a magnetic moment, and gravity... or magnetism and gravity at all. One is, after all, a force, and the other is the geometry of spacetime.

I'm not going to make assumptions, but given the time that's passed without replication of results... eh... seems blue-sky to me.
 
  • #153
I agry ,but I heard there are more experimnts about it (Mr Podklentov for example) and thing it is future.

By
 
  • #154
I was reading earlier posts... What are the cons of pseudo-gravity caused by rotation?
Such a craft can still accelerate along the rotation axis to move. An object rotating in space would spin indefinitely, making it the most energy efficient compared to counterrotating and continuous acceleration. A small craft need not be wheel shaped, it can have a counterweight on a cable for a kilometer or so (to provide 1 g without corolis affects the cable will be about 2 km long).
I'm under the impression that spinning stations and ships would be the best method for pseudo-gravity... if this is not true please explain why.
 
  • #155
FtlIsAwesome said:
I was reading earlier posts... What are the cons of pseudo-gravity caused by rotation?
Such a craft can still accelerate along the rotation axis to move. An object rotating in space would spin indefinitely, making it the most energy efficient compared to counterrotating and continuous acceleration. A small craft need not be wheel shaped, it can have a counterweight on a cable for a kilometer or so (to provide 1 g without corolis affects the cable will be about 2 km long).
I'm under the impression that spinning stations and ships would be the best method for pseudo-gravity... if this is not true please explain why.

One of the major drawbacks is the you have variable gravity in that situation unless you're talking about a gargantuan structure with large areas that are not inhabited. Meanwhile you still have people who can't cross the "wheel", unless they go through diminishing g until they hit the hub, then back up.
 
  • #156
Why have artificial gravity at all?

I would have thought that the benefits of freefall outweigh the drawbacks.

The question then would be addressing the drawbacks.

If muscle atrophy could be prevented through electro-stimulation during sleep or somesuch, what other drawbacks need to be addressed?
 
  • #157
Huttate said:
Why have artificial gravity at all?

I would have thought that the benefits of freefall outweigh the drawbacks.

The question then would be addressing the drawbacks.

If muscle atrophy could be prevented through electro-stimulation during sleep or somesuch, what other drawbacks need to be addressed?

It is an unnatural way to live. While freefall may be fine for highly-trained personnel on short-duration flights, eventually regular people will want to be able to do regular things (like, say eat their lunch some other way than from a squeeze bag). You can't train every single passenger for free-fall. You'll get broken arms, spilled liquids and free-floating safety hazards galore.
 

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