or zapping rocks on Mars..

What we are looking for, is building blocks.

In an attempt to save the thread from trolling & stuff, I have an actual question.
Since we know that zero-G causes loss of bone mass and 1-G doesn't, as we have a reasonable amount of data on zero-G living and a heck of a lot on 1-G, would it be possible to add a centrifuge section to the ISS to gather data on the region between 0 and 1 G?
The point being that we are quite likely to go to Mars within a couple of decades and it'd be good to be prepared with the knowledge of what 0.38 G's does to the human body as we currently have zero data on that. We have a very small amount but I suspect not enough from the 0.17 G's on the Moon.
Not an easy experiment to do but ultimately worthwhile I suspect.

That's OK, but your wrong on both counts.


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Well we're either wanting to do science, or wanting to satisfy our destiny.
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Both.




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would it be possible to add a centrifuge section to the ISS to gather data on the region between 0 and 1 G?
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I've asked that exact question...
We would be capable of doing it, [and probably will after the life time of the present ISS] but damn costs are far more to do it.

Building a a space station ala 2001: A Space Odyssey would cover all contingencies with 1G at the circumference, reducing the further towards the center we go to cover for all possible experiemnts.

Until 1953 no one had scaled Everest......and anyway the similarity is obvious despite your blinkers.

So let me guess - no sensible answers yet?
I don't know the formulas for centripetal acceleration off the top of my head; how big would the centrifuge have to be to make, say, 0.5 G's at the outer ring?

Wouldn't it more be a matter of how fast its rotating?

Yeah sorry I forgot to define that. You'd need to know either the rotational period and/or the diameter.
So say a bunch of heavy-lift rockets were used to lift the components up and make the ring about ...... 30 metres in diameter .... ?

What mass would that be as well, not that it matters to the actual rotation, but the whole thing would need to be accelerated?

I'll see what I can find out from some 2001 A Space Odyssey. There science was pretty close to the mark.

Yep, good point. You'd have to do it by either using small rockets (no Newtonian reaction) or have another flywheel spin-up the other way to counteract it.
It's getting messy ...... http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/frown.png

Diameter
~300 m (984 ft)
Height
~150 m (495 ft) along rotational axis
Average speed
~17,500 mph (5 miles/ second)
Orbital Period
91 minutes
Rotational Period
61 seconds
Altitude
~210 miles
Era(s)
2001: A Space Odyssey
Affiliation
USA; USSR; Hilton Hotels




http://2001.wikia.com/wiki/Space_Station_V


2001: A Space Odyssey, was known for its scientific accuracy, so this may be right.

It's getting messy ......
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Don't worry...The Space Engineers with NASA and other companies will sort it all out. :-)

Of course it has no references, so the likelihood its correct is matched by the likelihood its not.

The Important fact from where I sit/stand with regards to rotating space stations to mimic gravity , is that the speed of the rotation would depend on the diameter of the outer wheel, and as such, the rotational speed would need to be high if the diameter was not large enough, and perhaps unmanageable,
So any future space station that would like to have 1G at the rim, would need to be fairly large diameter.

It's like when Frank Whittle explained his jet engine to manufacturers of aircraft engines. He stressed the simplicity of his engine's design and function.

"Don't worry about the simplicity", said one manufacturer, "we'll soon design that out of it".

Ah yes I remember that. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/smile.png
I had a further think about the counter-rotating rings: It'd add a lot of mass but make life a lot easier to manoeuvre the structure around. I know they have to change the attitude of the ISS every now and then for various reasons so eliminating the gyroscopic precession would pretty much be a requirement.

Nasa selects InSight Mars mission after Curiosity rover

Just two weeks after landing its Curiosity rover on Mars, the US space agency has announced it will send another robot to the planet in 2016.

The InSight spacecraft will be a static lander that will carry instruments to investigate Mars' deep interior.

Scientists say this will give them a clearer idea of how all the rocky planets formed - the Earth included.

InSight beat two other proposals in a competition to find Nasa's next relatively low-cost mission.

This so-called Discovery class of endeavour is cost-capped at $425m (£270; 345m euros), although that figure does not include the rocket to launch the spacecraft.

InSight stands for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport.

It will be led from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

The design of the lander leans heavily on the successful Phoenix probe put on the Red Planet in 2008. But although the 2016 venture will look very similar, it will carry very different instrumentation.

A seismic experiment will listen for "marsquakes" and use this information to map the boundaries between the rock layers inside the world.

It will determine if the planet still has a liquid or solid core, and provide some clues as to why its surface is not divided up into tectonic plates like on Earth. More http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19327286