Japanese researchers propose a concept for making artificial gravity on the moon
singularityhub.com
singularityhub.com
Also unless I missed it, they fudged the part where the trains transition from the static tracks to the rotating structure. If so, that speaks volumes to their level of attention to detail.
Did anybody pick up what the lit up pit in the middle was supposed to be?
- Everything falling down and the mess on the floor when this thing has a downtime
- The still existing gravity towards the moon, which would be a constant additional force pulling you sideways (down) with 1/6 g
That would be why it's a cone not a cylinder, to line up the "subjective down", the sum of forces including lunar 1/6 g; with the direction that the ground is in.
Stopping would be an issue. But it looks like there is some accommodation for that in the form of a big "bathtub" at the bottom that could hold the water. IDK why there's so much water in the first place though.
* or right, no idea if this is spinning clockwise or anti-clockwise.
Whether that's actually achievable (while still allowing people and supplies and water and oxygen and such to enter and exit) is of course another question.
Look at the design, with the surface not vertical but at a steep angle inward. It's pretty clearly designed to produce a total perceived weight equivalent to 1g, composed of 1/6 g downwards caused by the moon, and I suppose 5/6 g sideways caused by rotation. The floor is at an angle that works with the sum of these forces.
Having said that, "spin gravity" isn't always comfortable, it depends on how large and how fast it is: https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/9575/mitigating-na...
This structure looks easily big enough to be out of danger, at 3rpm and 100m radius.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxeMoaxUpWk
Before I watched the video, I didn't know the Soviet Union tested a (small) centrifuge for artificial gravity in space back in the 70s:
I'd expect research or mining sites to be quite basic and not like this habitat anyway.
edit: I guess, if they build it in one of the moon's craters where the sun never shines, and where pockets of frozen water exist, it would make shielding from the sun a lot easier than a complex orbit.
In fact, maybe we should just cut to the chase and build amusement parks on the Moon. You know, for "physical and mental health" or something.
And that reason is the moon dust.
The moon dust is quite special as it is highly abrasive and sticks to anything because of the electrostatic charges.
It seeps though any gap and will wear down and render any mechanical machine useless in very short time.
Nothing soft (clothes, plastic) will survive on moon for more than few months.
The dust is a nightmare for anything non-moon and there is no help.
See one of the latest Real Engineering videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k9wIsKKgqo
Dust buildup can be significantly decreased by weaving conductors throughout the outer shells and applying a current to it.
> Well, vacuum cleaners are a thing and could probably be exported to the moon to take care of any dust getting inside.
Specifically that last part.
They're the same statement once you think about it some or have some domain experience
What your comment seemed to suggest, was trying to preemptively remove all the dust.
Moon encampments need to be clean rooms with respect to the outside
It's a little like being underwater in a dome. If you see stuff from the outside inside, there's a dangerous leak.
Oh, except for that this dust kills you if you breathe it in, which water doesn't
Some of it stuck to the outside of spacesuits and/or robots when they went outside. Neither should be going beyond some intermediate garage area anyway, just like you don't usually park your car in the bedroom.
> And what's stopping the rest?
The airlock door? There's no wind on the moon, so it won't blow inside on its own.
> And where do you put what's captured?
Well, I'd assume that once your vacuum cleaners are full you'd take a moon-lorry and dump the lot into a nearby crater or something. If it's as sharp as advertised, the sharp edges might make it well-suited for use in concrete as well.
In any case you don't have to keep the entire moon clean, only the inside of the base. It doesn't seem to be a terrible burden to clean the suits and rovers after every expedition, more like something that you plan to do anyway because you want to keep those expensive things well-maintained.
Your assumptions about vacuum cleaners are fine. Do remember that it's sharp glass powder that immediately embeds, so that won't work
I see that you have imaginary beliefs about how much work cleaning is. NASA says differently.
Things that you guessed on the spot aren't interesting ways for you to argue.
It's not actually a valid comparison. Having water fall from the sky really changes the nature of rock dust
Dust on the moon is basically all what we would call obsidian glass dust (sharp) because it's made in asteroid impact craters
At least we would have a good use for all these nukes
It is as if people in the West thinks the entirety of China is united on every decision, invention that comes out of every entity in the country.
So a university and a corp = Japan now. Wow.
So next time Facebook partners with some academics, we can say "The US proposes..." ?
For an average 75kg person, you'd need to add roughly 5x (375kg) to their weight to reach parity between Moon and Earth, which if done with iron or steel would need less than 50l of volume spread around the body. Heavier metals could be used for an even lower volume, of course (though you'd want to avoid poisonous metals like lead, mercury or osmium), though you might hit other bottlenecks (gold and platinum are 2.5x denser, and iridium even more so, but price comes into play — perhaps locally sourcing them on other "rocky" planets is more feasible).
This does not resolve all of the issues mentioned in the article (like the effect on our internal organs, childbirth and such), but can definitely target a bunch of externally accessible muscles to keep them from getting atrophied.
Perhaps this will be a cheap solution for those not living in the rotating megastructures. I should start collecting gold to be able to go sightseeing on the Moon.
No cheapo solutions for us plebs then. /me dumps all the platinum in the trash.
Yeah it would be like anchoring a balloon. Sure it's not going to float away but it's still a balloon. It's our internal jiggly bits that are important too.
For this I just have the right solution: extremely rich iron diet.
We had people on the ISS stay for a year.
I would also imagine the difference between zero gravity and little moon gravity to be quiet significant regarding keeping people healthy.
Will long extended stays be healthy? No but that is a problem for the far future. I think the focus now should be to get the basic logistics in order. I am sure there would be enough people that would be willing to participate in a mission to Moon even if it meant a shortening of their lifespan. Nothing about the first colonization attempts will be pretty but colonization has never been very pretty in human history to begin with.