• Question: how is artificial gravity made?

    Asked by Sheldon Cooper to Anne, Beth, COLFlight, Jon, Tom on 12 Oct 2015.
    • Photo: Columbus Flight Directors

      Columbus Flight Directors answered on 12 Oct 2015:

      Simon: Hey Sheldon! Probably the best way to make artificially gravity is to build a big pressurised wheeled space station in space and rotate it so that the centripetal forces created by the rotation feel like “gravity” for anyone walking/running on the inside surface of the wheel furthest away from the centre of rotation. You probably have seen this multiple times in science fiction films (including most recently in the Martian with Matt Damon). However for me the best movie scene that exemplifies this is the “Odyssey jogging scene” in the film 2001:

      BTW just to blow your mind on the special effects: That scene was shot in 1968!

    • Photo: Beth Healey

      Beth Healey answered on 13 Oct 2015:

      Hey Sheldon! How is Penny?!?!?

      As Simon explained we can use centrifugal forces to create artificial gravity. When I was at the European Astronaut Center I had the chance to see someone on a centrifuge which was really interesting.

      Here is a link to a video of Tim on a centrifuge!

      You may also be interested in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(John_Varley_novel)

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