Japan’s Proposal to Put Artificial Gravity on the Moon Is Wonderfully Futuristic
Here is the glass cone. The structure is said to be one of the tallest and largest sci-fi space cones ever created, measuring 400 meters high and 200 meters wide.
To recreate the gravity of the Earth, six times greater than that of the Moon, the centrifugal force is used by rotational movements.
Space explorers will have to overcome a number of obstacles. They will have to produce food in extremely harsh environments, without clean water, breathable air and food.
Additionally, they must co-exist with small groups of other explorers for long periods of time while minimizing their exposure to searing radiation, which is ubiquitous wherever they go.
Assuming the scouts overcome these difficulties and establish a permanent presence, they will face another challenge: gravity. According to studies of astronauts who have spent weeks or months in microgravity, microgravity can lead to muscle atrophy, bone loss, vision loss, and immune system changes.
If this problem is not alleviated somehow, the first space settlers and their descendants could suffer health problems.
In partnership with the Kajima company, Kyoto University has launched a new idea to explore futuristic concepts that could one day offer visitors and settlers a taste of Earth’s good and healthy gravity.
Vision ? Named Glass, the structure is said to be one of the largest sci-fi space cones ever created, measuring 400 meters high and 200 meters wide.
As the habitat rotates around its axis every 20 seconds, people living inside will take advantage of Earth’s gravity and see trees, grass, and lakes.
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“There is no such plan in other countries’ space development plans,” Yosuke Yamashiki, director of Kyoto University’s Center for Human Spatialology SIC, said at a press conference announcing the plans. .
“Our plan represents important technologies, crucial to ensuring that humans can move through space in the future. »
In addition to the habitat, the proposal describes a transportation system that would connect Earth to future colonies on the Moon, in Earth orbit, and on Mars itself.
The system would be called Hexatrack and would be based on orbiting satellites that would generate artificial gravity and serve as tracks for the system.
When traveling between planets, the train cars will be enclosed in hexagonal capsules to avoid exposure to cosmic rays by being separated at stations .
“As the idea of living in space becomes more realistic, the problem of low gravity, which I intuited as a child, is a problem we need to overcome,” said Takuya Ono, associate professor on the project at the center and principal researcher at Kajima, a major general contractor.
“We are committed to making the plan useful to human beings.”
In the short term, this is all more of a concept than something that could be used in practice. This massive undertaking would require considerable resources and technical knowledge, comparable to those needed to build the Empire State Building upside down on the Moon or Mars, spin it around like a top, then drop water on it. , soil and other internal structures.
It can be quite unsettling to live in such a place where the ground bends under your feet and local gravity clashes with artificial gravity. Unless designed correctly, living in this environment can be a challenge.
Despite the optimistic schedule for work on this scale, scientists and engineers predict that we won’t start migrating to the Moon and Mars until the second half of this century.
It is likely that other less ambitious concepts, closer to us, will receive more attention by then.
As with any step toward larger concepts such as those presented here by Kyoto University, each represents a small step in the direction of steps that will be best taken if artificial gravity is taken into consideration.
