· Why doesn't NASA build rotating spacecraft to simulate gravity?

Question

· Why doesn't NASA build rotating spacecraft to simulate gravity?

Answer 1

The design would be very expensive!

Answer 2

That is like asking why did NASA spend about two-billion to create a pen to write upside down while in space. While we look at Russia who is using a pencil....Just another mystery of the world.

Answer 3

This idea was popular before people actually traveled into space. When space travel was actually achieved, we learned that the absence of gravity was not a problem for most astronauts, but that the effects of a rotating ship on a human's semicircular canals resulted in severe nausea.

Answer 4

They have: the International Space Station

Answer 5

Because the whole idea of going there is to experience microgravity. The main scientific objectives are to see how various things behave in the absence of gravity, so why would they want to defeat their main purpose in being there? They're not tourists, they're researchers.

Answer 6

Because so far they don't have the money to build one big enough! The simulated gravity through rotation could be done on any size of spaceship, but a small one would have too much curvature in the floor to make it worthwhile; an object near your feet would be noticeably heavier than the same object up near your head, which would disorient the astronauts even more than free fall already does. The rotation would also create problems for trying to dock with other spaceships, since the two ships would have to not only match speeds but also match angular speeds at the docking point, which is something NASA would prefer not to have to deal with if they can avoid it. At some point in the future, when more money and resources are available, a rotating space habitat quite possibly will be built.

Answer 7

It's very easy to make a rotating spacecraft. No special joints or extra parts are needed. You just spin the whole spacecraft. The problem is that the apparent gravity will vary depending on how far the astronaut is from the centre of mass, so to do it properly, the ship will have to be very big. It costs a lot to launch big ships.

Answer 8

  They will when they become necessary.

Answer 9

The short answer: Cause it's very little benefit for a whole lot of cost, and it's hard to do.

Moving parts in space is very hard.  Firstly, from a mechanical perspective, the vacuum of space can lead to a phenomenon known as cold welding, where two pieces of metal stick to each other.  This is just one problem among many. Space lubricants is a brand new field, so there's a lot more research that's needed before we can easily move very large stuff around.

There's also the question of piping, both for air, electricity, and possibly fluids.  The standard power source for spacecraft --  solar panels -- don't like to be moved much.  They're very thin and vibrations and motion can cause a resonant frequency to spike and crack them.  So they have to be on the non-moving part of the ship, and the power has to be pumped through a sliding connector.  This is pretty hard to do in a vacuum, particularly when the outside of the spacecraft is being charged by solar electric particles (from the solar wind).

There's a million other problems.  But basically it's not enough bang for the buck right now.

Soon...

Answer 10

Well, creating a rotating spacecraft is simple in theory, but extremely difficult in practice. Just as an example, if you had a spacecraft such as yours (and just to make the numbers easier let's make it 1000 meters in radius) you'd need to accelerate the ends of the ship up to 100 meters/second or 360 kilometers/hour. And it'd have to rotate once every 62.8 seconds. This would take a lot of fuel to get the spacecraft rotating that fast, and the stresses that the ship would have to endure would be immense (meaning very heavy construction that'd need to be lifted into space). Most spacecraft we're able to launch today are actually very light and brittle since it costs roughly $1 million per pound just to lift something into space.

But probably more important is the question of how to build it. You wouldn't be able to construct a ship like that on Earth. It'd have to be assembled in space. Meaning you'd need a permanent space station in Earth orbit. Furthermore, the design of the ship would have to be "perfect" since even the slightest asymmetries in the mass distribution would be difficult to deal with. You might even have to take into account the movement of the astronauts within the ship itself (much like you have to get weighed when getting on a small plane). I mean, we can do this sort of thing technologically speaking (and have had the ability for quite some time) but the costs would be astronomical (pardon the pun). It is much more cost efficient to simply have the astronauts exercise several hours a day than to build a rotating spacecraft. Russian astronauts aboard Mir have shown that it is possible for them to live in space for extended periods of time (well over a year) with reparable side effects.  

Answer 11

they are going to but there's no  man made force able to do that forever

Answer 12

You know, I was also wondering for the same thing because it is an easy way to experience gravity. But I don't know why.

Answer 13

The design and scale of such a spacecraft would be tremendous. It's far easier and cheaper to go without it. While it looks easy enough in the movies, it's much more difficult to implement in the real world.