Roulette Wheel Gravity To Live On Mars

The future of American human spaceflight should be the colonization of Mars. But can humans live and reproduce in the low gravity?

If humans require 100% Earth equivalent artificial gravity to live or reproduce there may be a way to provide this even on the surface of any smaller body such as Mars.

Imagine the spinning wheel shaped space station in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Centrifugal force of the wheel simulates the sensation of artificial gravity acting upon the astronauts. Now imagine this wheel lying on its side and spinning on the surface of Mars. Two forces would now act on those inside the wheel.

Centrifugal force equal to 62% of Earth gravity would move you toward the wall. This is the same force used in a fun house amusement ride where the round room spins and people stick to the wall even after the floor drops out.

The natural gravity on Mars is equal to 38% of Earth and would move you toward the floor.

Both forces add to 100% of Earth gravity.

Now imagine tilting the side so the wheel is shaped like a Roulette wheel. Standing on the tilted side your body leans over about 60% of the way to being parallel to the surface of Mars. This tilted wall you are standing on becomes the new floor.

Natural gravity acts on you to make you lean toward Mars surface.

Artificial spin gravity acts on you to make you lean in the opposite direction.

The two balance out so you feel a combined force simulating 100% Earth gravity pressing you into the tilted wall.

The spinning nuclear powered machine would be buried under the surface of Mars in a vacuum chamber elevated on electromagnetic tracks like we use for maglev trains.




Once this concept is proven it will remove low gravity as a possible show stopper to the colonization of Mars. Thousands of people could live in a wheel 1 KM wide. We would view all the land of the bodies in the Solar System as available for colonization by billions of people.

The viability of this idea can be tested on Earth now in a spinning funhouse device with a tilted wall. The combined forces acting on the surface could be measured. Minimum required size of the surface area compared to the size of the human body could be determined.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Roulette
• Wheel
• Gravity
• Artificial
• Future
• Space
• Flight
• Mars
• Colony
• NASA
• Moon

[dankarpinski]

You cannot just add the forces like you have. A centrifugal acceleration of 92% earth gravity would be required for the astronaut to feel earth gravity and it would be at an angle of about 68degrees, which is 75% of the way to vertical.

required acceleration is given by (qrt( 1 - 0.38^2 ) )*100 as a percentage of earth gravity.

angle off horizontal is given by arccos (0.38/1 )

[Ideas4Now]

@dankarpinski The idea in this video is expressed as a concept only. The numbers 38% and 62% were for illustrative purposes only and not intended to be correct. However it is true that if you are spun in a round room on Earth you will be subjected to two forces. Gravity is fixed but the rate of spin can be easily adjusted so the sum of the two forces can be varied in a range. Of course the key question is will cells dividing in an embryo react normally to two small forces?

[Ideas4Now]

Humans can live anywhere they have:

1 Energy (from fission, fusion, or solar)

2 Chemical elements (most or all of the 92)

3 Shielding from radiation (an atmosphere or a layer of dirt)

4 Gravity (Either natural or artificial)

We have all the science and most of the engineering to address the first three and allow billions of people to live on thousands of bodies throughout the solar system. The idea in this video could address the last possible showstopper to colonization, gravity.

[Ideas4Now]

The entire text of my video can be viewed by clicking on the more info link in the grey box to the right.

[safithegr8]

hmmm... how will we port it to mars?

since it should be atleast 1km in diameter..!

[Ideas4Now]

Safithegr8,

Thank you for your good question. Because of the cost of launching material into low Earth orbit, 90% to 99% of the material for a large engineering project completed on the surface of Mars would have to come from materials indigenous to Mars. Fortunately Mars has abundant supplies of all the elements, unlike the Moon.

[nathanmitchell1981]

Very interesting, It truly makes me proud to see that others still hold a genuine interest of the advancement, and what I see as inevitable future of our people. Please keep up the good work, my hat goes off to you...