Manchester and his team think they have found a potential solution to the impossible problem – a “high-expansion-ratio deployable structure” or HERDS. ![]() So, to rotate at less than 3 RPM and still have the benefit of a full Earth’s worth of simulated gravity, the structure itself must be a kilometer long.įitting that much material in a single rocket launch so far has proven impossible. Science puts that rotational speed limit for discomfort at around 3 RPM. Unfortunately, humans, being the squishy bags of water that they are, don’t really like to spin super fast for long periods, as anyone who has ever gotten sick on a carnival ride can tell you. Either spin really, really fast, or have a really, really big axis of rotation. There are two options to reach Earth’s gravity using centrifugal forces. Such large structures need large investment, but they also have large potential benefits. The team, led by professor Zac Manchester of CMU and Jeffery Lipton of UW, was recently approved as 2022 NIAC fellows after meeting NASA’s objectives as part of that program. They finished a Phase I project last year in which they “analyze a mission concept analogous to the Lunar Gateway” that could be deployed into a kilometer-long structure. “Kilometer-Scale Space Structure from a Single Launch” which was accepted into the NIAC program last year, is the project in question. Despite this, NASA appears to be interested in the concept, awarding a $600,000 NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Phase II grant to a team from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and the University of Washington (UW) to develop a structure that can simulate full Earth gravity and be launched in a single rocket. Still, it remains to be seen if this will fix the issues presented by a lack of gravity. “Simulated gravity,” which employs a spinning device to produce a centrifugal force that has the same impact on the body as gravity, is an alternative route that might solve some of these issues. ![]() However, coping with zero gravity causes a variety of issues among astronauts, ranging from bone degradation to vision loss. Credit: Zac ManchesterĪrtificial gravity is still a science fiction concept. Graphic depiction of Kilometer-Scale Space Structures from a Single Launch.
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