On the horizon are space stations with artificial gravity that will allow humans to travel deep into the solar system. The American company Vast is developing a large-scale orbital habitat designed to generate simulated gravity through centripetal force.
It will allow humans to live in space for the long term without the severe harmful effects of zero gravity, opening the way for long-term missions to Mars and beyond.
“Space stations with artificial gravity allow us to explore space deeper and deeper,” said Tom Shelley, vice president of special crew recruitment at Vast.
“One of the problems with humans in space is that they suffer from bone loss and muscle loss due to the side effects of living in microgravity, but if you could create a space station with artificial gravity, you would now be living in the gravitational environment that we are in here.
“The theory suggests that you can spend more time in space, and therefore you can explore further and deeper into space.” “We are fundamentally a business about keeping humans alive,” he added. The concept of a rotating anti-gravity space station was first proposed by Russian rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, and later endorsed by German-American astronaut Wernher von Braun.
It works because when the station rotates, it creates an outward force, pushing the astronauts toward Earth, which, if done at the right speed, is indistinguishable from planetary gravity.
Nowadays, astronauts on Earth-orbiting space stations such as the International Space Station experience microgravity, and float because the spacecraft is in constant free fall around Earth. On deeper space missions, such as traveling to the moon, astronauts experience true zero gravity.
Space agencies have toyed with the idea of creating gravity by rotating space stations for decades to avoid health problems, but until now, the idea has remained firmly in the realm of science fiction. This concept was explored in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
But several companies are working on anti-gravity systems, and last year, Russian state rocket company Energia presented plans for a spaceport that rotates five times a minute, creating centrifugal force that mimics 50 percent of Earth’s gravity.
FAST plans to launch its first habitable module into space, Haven-1, next year, and will follow it with a full space station, Haven-2, operational by 2030. After that, it will begin work on its own artificial gravity station, which is expected to take a decade or more.
The station will have a crew of 40 and will generate artificial gravity by rotating from one end to the other at 3.5 revolutions per minute.
But living without gravity greatly harms human health, causing bone and muscle loss, altered heart adaptation, changes in the immune system, and problems with vision and perception.
“The idea is to move these space stations much further into the solar system,” Mr. Shelley added.
“This is a much longer timeline, we are talking about a decade or more and it is more about the goal of our company rather than trying to achieve the goal set by government agencies.
“But before you can spin a space station to create artificial gravity, you have to learn how to build a station and operate it, and that’s really what Haven-1 and Haven-2 are about.”
Jed McCaleb, Vast’s founder, said he wants to enable millions of people to live in the solar system, allowing civilization to grow while preserving Earth. Speaking about the identity of the first inhabitants, Mr Shelley added: “Haven-1 and Haven-2 are essentially science platforms, so it may be an ordinary individual who is flying, but it is a special individual who will go with a scientific program in mind.
“Then there are high-net-worth individuals who are looking for some kind of next chapter, next challenge in their lives,” he said. “They have the financial resources to undertake this unique adventure, but they are looking to invest their time and try to develop human capabilities,
“It’s a bit like the new Mount Everest. It might be a tick on someone’s life’s to-do list, but on top of that we’re putting some science that is of real value to life and health on Earth. “There’s a lot of work being done around stem cells, around growing protein crystals, where individuals can contribute, and they can contribute data to that, and also they can then submit their bodies for testing and taking samples and adding that biometric data to different databases looking at how different types of organisms are. Humans interact with the space environment.
(Yahoo News)
NASA and Stanford University came up with the idea of a rotating space station in 1975, which they called the Stanford Taurus. The station is designed in the form of a ring with a diameter of more than a mile and capacity for 10,000 permanent residents.
In 2011, NASA also began developing the rotary-wheeled space station Nautilus-X, but the project was canceled due to budget constraints. (Yahoo News)
