Emu Gravity

On Dec 10, 2003, at 8:52 PM, babbler36 wrote:

> There is one item in the space settlement program that makes me
> reluctant to sign off on any space settlement project:
> The "artificial" gravity. It not "artificial," it is "emulated," via
> centripetal and centrifugal force, with a much stonger Coriolis
> Effect. It would cause life to become VERY different, like not being
> able to walk in agaist (or is that with?) the rotation of the
> settlement.
>

The effect depends on the rotation rate. The NASA studies in the 70s
found that up to about 2rpm shouldn't create any major problems. There
will be differences. Depending on which way you throw, a ball will
appear to curve one way or another. A decent local baseball team
should be able to beat the World Series champ if they play in the
colony and the guys from Earth don't have too much time to practice in
a rotating environment.

The International Space Station's (ISS) most important legacy may be
jump-starting space tourism. Consider: the first space tourist, Dennis
Tito, was supposed to go to the Soviet era Mir space station. Under
pressure from NASA, Russia de-orbited the Mir which resulted in Mr.
Tito going to the ISS instead. Now the Mir was a terrific space
station, but by the time of Tito's trip it was also old, smelly,
crowded and probably not all that nice. The ISS was brand new, shiny,
much more roomy, etc. Mr. Tito came back to Earth with glowing accounts
of how great space is. Would his experience have been as good on Mir?

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.