Bill Gerstenmaier Was For Centrifuges Before He Was Against Them
The weak pull of artificial gravity, The Space Review
“Gerstenmaier, while skeptical of the need for and ability to accommodate artificial gravity, didn’t rule it out entirely. He noted that there’s very little information on the effectiveness of partial gravity, including the minimum levels needed to offset the deleterious effects of microgravity. Some of that research is being done with a small rodent centrifuge on the station’s Kibo module. “We’ll take a look and see if there’s some magic partial gravity that actually mitigates most of the concerns of the zero-gravity levels,” he said. Until then, astronauts on the ISS and future exploration missions will have to learn to take the good with the bad when it comes to weightlessness–and hope they love to exercise for a couple hours every day.”
Keith’s note: Well, DUH, Bill. You guys cancelled the 2.5 meter centrifuge facility that was supposed to fly on ISS to answer those exact same questions. Gee, I wonder why they have not been addressed? Don’t try and duck the issue: I can remember sitting in meetings where it was discussed that you attended back in the day 😉
It really would be useful research that they need to be doing, even if they decide to send the crew out to Mars (or the Moon) in microgravity. Do they really want to just guess at the effects of extended stays in low gravity, especially with a Mars focus?
Gerst is hiding his head in the sand. Research into partial G might just show that zeroG is entirely unnecessary, that we could regain a lot of crew hours, some the deleterious effects in bones and on astronaut health…is it better to not know the potential value? That is what he is saying.
For those of us who know, he is simply showing how NASA operates, which is the reason today’s NASA program has no vision, no strategy, no launch able spacecraft, no Shuttle…its easier if you don’t have to deal with it.
I wonder if anyone has calculated the cost of requiring our astronauts to spend hours a day exercising?
Our highly-trained astronauts are some very expensive ‘machines’.
I’m a centrifuge/spin-station supporter, but to be fair you’d also have to assess the added cost of maintaining a centrifuge module large enough for human habitation, and the added costs of trying to create a micro-g research environment on a spacestation attached to a giant flywheel.
I can see your point but heck the spent hundreds of billions of dollars on this thing and all anyone here on earth knows is the cupola, if that.
A centrifuge would be the one thing that could stop an average non-space caring person and make them wonder for a second: “Why is that thing spinning in space with a human stuck in it?”..”didn’t I see that in some movie?”.
A few extra hundreds of millions of dollars and this baby would pay for itself in spades.
When all the funding evaporates year after year just to try and put together in new ways for new missions things and people that were already around, with the advertised outcomes unlikely even then, many new and promising options will inevitably all fall by the wayside. Artificial gravity would be on that list, never likely to get funded as efforts to hurl money to the right districts come first, and none of the existing districts have an artificial gravity Senator and jobs.
As a result, Mars plans, like the Asteroid redirect mission (which no longer redirects anything…are we down to some dust particles?), will continue to devolve, delay and descope as denial continues about the changes necessary inside NASA about it’s partner relationships.
I read one report that showed serious medical effects of long term micro gravity. I expect the interested in artificial gravity to increase.
The main complaint was having moving parts for long times but the ISS solar arrays have given us experience with that and you can make the whole ship rotate with big swing arms to provide gravity so you don’t have moving parts if necessary.
The only useful tidbit that came from the AIAA/Space round tables was the discussion of artificial gravity. Apparently, the notion that it is needed is growing within the program as deleterious effects on the optic nerve are better understood.
Remains of that ARC centrifuge can be seen inside and outside Ames visitor center. Inside is nice show-n-tell replica, outside is frame weathering the elements. From little I know I heard 3Gs doesn’t have much effect on insects. Small mice can acclimate after a day. It seems some studies on artificial gravity would be worthwhile. Might be a waste of time, maybe not, I think that’s what research is all about to get further data and knowledge.
Its a little more complicated than that.
So, when they eventually splash the ISS they will have missed a golden opportunity to test artificial gravity and get a ton of valuable data?
Yep, sounds like today’s NASA leadership to me.
And humans are just the tip of the iceberg. The bigger question is the impact of low gravity on the plants, bacteria and animals humans will be to survive on Mars without dependence on care packages from Earth.
I guess the notion here is that there are hundreds of species to choose from, and even do some tinkering with, in order to eventually find a plan that works. For better or worse, we as a species are stuck with the basic blueprint that we currently have.
I wouldn’t mind congress funding these studies.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.go… family members do NASA research on the reproductive effects on mice in zero gee research on 1/6th and 1/3rd gravity research is stalled………..
The study of gravitational effects-partial G and artificial G as well as micro-G was one of the major research disciplines used as rationale for proceeding with the Station program originally. There were others too-like biotechnology.
The engineers, like Gerst, seemed to think that the main goal was just to build the Station-not necessarily to figure out what to do with it. They cut a lot of the research programs back around the time that Gerst took over and many never recovered. AMS was finally brought back but that was because of a lot of political flak and the fact that NASA had accepted tens of millions $$ from the Department of Energy for a multinational research project. Biotech never came back and neither did much of the gravitational biology and research. They do micro-G observations because of the deleterious effects on astronauts.
Its a bit funny because at the beginning of ISS, they decided NASA’s role was scientific research and technology advancement and they were discussing sending space operations off to a separate agency. Then the operations engineers, like Gerstenmaier, took over, and now the research receives little support for the NASA human space flight budget.