Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder are working to transform artificial gravity from sci-fi fantasy to real-world technology.
The team, led by aerospace engineer Torin Clark, envisions a compact centrifuge—small enough to fit inside a room—where galactic explorers can go to get their daily dose of gravity.
“Astronauts experience bone loss, muscle loss, cardiovascular deconditioning, and more in space,” Clark, an assistant professor at CU Boulder, said in a statement. “Today, there are a series of piecemeal countermeasures to overcome these issues.”
Scientists aboard the International Space Station, for instance, must exercise up to 2.5 hours a day and maintain a balanced diet to keep their bodies from wasting away.
“But artificial gravity is great because it can overcome all of [those issues] at once,” Clark added.
Strapped onto a what looks like a hospital gurney attached to a giant turntable, the engineer tests his team’s short-radius centrifuge.
As the platform rotates—slowly at first, then gradually faster—it creates an angular velocity that pushes Clark’s feet toward the base, almost as if he were standing under his own weight.
“It’s fun,” he said of the amusement park ride-like experience.
Before anyone can start receiving these space-age spa treatments, though, the team must solve one major problem of artificial gravity: motion sickness.
If Clark turned his head to either side while spinning, he would perceive what’s known as the “cross-coupled illusion”: a disruption of the inner ear that makes you feel like you’re tumbling.
“It’s a very strange sensation,” according to Kathrine Bretl, a graduate student in Clark’s lab.
So strange, in fact, that for decades engineers considered that kind of motion sickness a deal breaker for artificial gravity.
Torin Clark does not agree.
His team tested their centrifuge on a group of volunteers over 10 sessions. But unlike earlier studies, the CU Boulder researchers started slow, spinning subjects at just one rotation per minute; they increased speed only once each participant no longer experienced cross-coupled illusion.
“We try to avoid instances of motion sickness because the whole point of our research is to make it tolerable,” Bretl said.
The team spun test subjects in a seated position, then asked them to tilt their head to the side to see if they experienced the cross-coupled illusion (via Torin Clark/University of Colorado Boulder)
By the end of the experiment, subjects were all spinning comfortably at an average speed of about 17 rotations per minute—much faster than any previous research suggested.
The group published their results in last month’s issue of the Journal of Vestibular Research.
“As far as we can tell, essentially anyone can adapt to this stimulus,” Clark said, making a case for artificial gravity as an option for future space travel.
Far future, based on lingering uncertainties: How long do the effects of this training last? How much gravity would an astronaut need to offset the loss of muscle and bone?
“The point of our work is to try to get more people to think that maybe artificial gravity isn’t so crazy,” Bretl explained. “Maybe it has a place outside of science fiction.”
NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) agree: The pair launched a joint study earlier this year to understand how artificial gravity can help astronauts stay healthy in space.
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