We all know the pictures of the astronauts on the ISS floating around. We also suspect that a lack of gravity is bad for the body as the muscles go weak and such.

Why don’t spaceships just rotate to cause the effect of artificial gravity through centrifugal forces?

  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip
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    5 hours ago

    Basically, the spinning diameter has to be really long so the spinning doesn’t make you puke long-term (Coriolis force is a bitch). There were NASA tests and studies about it, which range between a 100 and a 1000 meter diameter.
    So, the ship has to be built for it from the design phase, be it with a rotating ring or a tether approach. Which we didn’t have yet a usecase for (for only a few days or months):

    • For a future Mars mission, would slow acceleration and deceleration be more viable.
    • Only real fitting usecase is a orbital space station with permanent crew.
    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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      1 hour ago

      usecase

      Not a word, my dude. When your spell check wants to put a hyphen or space in, let it.

      • agedcorn@lemmy.world
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        1 hour ago

        That’s the wonderful thing about a living language, if enough people start using a new word or a variation on the spelling of an existing one, it can simply become correct at a point.

        The compound variant ‘usecase’ is often used in tech and refers to a very specific means in which a system is utilized.