Spin Gravity (Was: New Member)

From: Andrew Goddard [mailto:a.goddard@...]

What we need to do is to educate the general public that habitats are
ultimately /the/ way to go ...

Considering how much of an uphill battle getting that point across on
this list -- and even more so on the other space-related lists I'm on --
we've still got a lot of education/debate to do to get a larger number of
our fellow space advocates to shed what Dr. Asimov referred to as "Planetary
Chauvinism

Take the number one experimental priority - do spun habitats produce effects
humans can live with, and what are the lower boundaries for practical
artificial gravity wrt boneloss and other associated physiological effects?

In addition to the projects you mentioned, there was a Soviet program in the
`60s:

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/vosether.htm

The version based on linking two Soyuz craft is something that could still
be done. Until such studies are made, the best we've got are the Earth-based
research, using centrifuges. The U.S. Naval Medical Center, at Pensacola,
Florida, and the Soviet's ORBIT facility were home to such studies in the
`60s -- see O'Neill's `The High Frontier" for details. NASA is engaged in a
new series of tests at the moment:

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/23jul_spin.htm?list151558

Dave

"Is a planetary surface the right place for an expanding technological
civilization?" Dr. Gerard K. O'Neill