• Question: How to space ships make artificial gravity?

    Asked by ;)georgia;) to Andrew, Leah-Nani, Hina, Ian, Kathryn, Xu on 12 Jun 2018. This question was also asked by TheNerdyWeeb, Mason The Amazing :).
    • Photo: Andrew Margetts-Kelly

      Andrew Margetts-Kelly answered on 12 Jun 2018:

      Well, the term “artificial gravity” is a little bit of a misnomer. We cannot “create” gravity but what we can do is accelerate and this mimics the sensation of gravity. In fact if you accelerate in a straight line you cannot tell the difference; it feels exactly the same as gravity.
      —
      So in a spacecraft there are two ways to achieve this acceleration to make it feel like gravity:
      1. Turn the rocket on… this accelerates us in a straight line and we have our artificial gravity. But we’ll run out of fuel pretty soon… so that leads us to option two:
      2. We spin around in something like a big hamster wheel. By rotating we are accelerating towards the centre constantly; exactly like when you go on the roundabout at the park (you feel like it is trying to throw you outwards). This is artificial gravity too; except you need to make the wheel quite big otherwise you’ll feel the spinning sensation too and feel sea-sick.

    • Photo: Leah-Nani Alconcel

      Leah-Nani Alconcel answered on 12 Jun 2018:

      Rotation about an axis can produce “artificial gravity” on a spaceship.

    • Photo: Kathryn Burrows

      Kathryn Burrows answered on 14 Jun 2018:

      As far as we know the gravitational force can only be created by matter. Space ships are themselves made of matter and are affected by all other matter in the universe, though matter very far has little effect. When a space ship moves away from the Earth its gravity due to the Earth is reduced, however, if it were to fly close to the moon its gravity due to the moon would increase. As the moon is smaller than the Earth there would be an overall reduction. Human bodies and minds have evolved to live with the Earths gravity, this is why in Sci-Fi there is often talk of simulating gravity. Suggestions of how to do this are using the equivalence principle from Einsteins theory of general relativity, the equivalence principle states that an acceleration is equivalent to gravity. So by accelerating a space craft, for example, by spinning it you could theoretically make those inside feel the same gravity as on the Earth. I don’t think any space ships purposely do this at the moment, which is why astronauts and cosmonauts on the ISS float about [which I think they quite enjoy even if it is not so good for their health!].

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