Japanese researchers have proposed constructing artificial-gravity buildings on the Moon and Mars which could help reduce health risks to humans in space.<\/p>\n
Their proposals follow a study published earlier this month which found astronauts suffered significant bone loss while in low-gravity environments.<\/p>\n
Only about half of this bone loss was recovered a year after the astronauts returned to Earth - raising concerns about future missions to Mars and the Moon.<\/p>\n
Now researchers from Kyoto University and Kajima Corporation have proposed huge rotating structures that would create the effect of Earth-like gravity through centripetal force.<\/p>\n
They propose building a living facility on the Moon called Lunar Glass which will be close to 400 metres tall and complete a full rotation every 20 seconds.<\/p>\n
A similar facility called Mars Glass is proposed for Mars.<\/p>\n
Renderings of these buildings shared by the SIC Human Spaceology Centre at Kyoto University are similar to the space station in the 2013 science-fiction film Elysium, although much smaller in scale.<\/p>\n
The multi-story surfaces of the rotating buildings are surrounded by liquid water and land with trees, creating a mini-biome with water and carbo cycles to sustain human populations.<\/p>\n
Alongside these facilities, the researchers proposed an interplanetary transportation system that maintains Earth-like gravity en route called the Hexatrack system.<\/p>\n
The carriages of the land-based Hexatrack train would be separated at injector stations and then inserted into a rotating hexagonal pod which also generates centripetal force while travelling through space.<\/p>\n
Rotational simulated gravity is already used in high-g centrifuges to train astronauts and aviators.<\/p>\n
Science-fiction films including Elysium, Interstellar, and 2001: A Space Odyssey feature spacecraft that rotate to create artificial gravity - although no existing spacecraft has yet ever been designed to simulate it.<\/p>\n
The researchers have proposed the whole system alongside announcing a joint study into achieving the plan - although they don't expect it will deliver results immediately.<\/p>\n
\"There is no plan like this in other countries' space development plans,\" said Yosuke Yamashiki, the director of the SIC Human Spaceology Centre.<\/p>\n
\"Our plan represents important technologies crucial to ensuring human beings will be able to move to space in the future,\" he added.<\/p>\n
They caution that constructing the full-size facilities will take around 100 years, although they hope to build a simplified version on the Moon by 2050.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
See the article here: <\/p>\n
Japanese researchers unveil artificial-gravity facilities proposed for Moon and Mars - Sky News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Japanese researchers have proposed constructing artificial-gravity buildings on the Moon and Mars which could help reduce health risks to humans in space. Their proposals follow a study published earlier this month which found astronauts suffered significant bone loss while in low-gravity environments. Continue reading