Slashdot Mirror
NASA's 20-G Centrifuge Machine
Roland Piquepaille writes "Scientists from NASA and two U.S. universities are using a 20-G centrifuge machine that can simulate up to 20 times the terrestrial gravity to evaluate the effects of hypergravity on humans. This 58-foot diameter centrifuge has three cabins, one for humans -- limited to 12.5 G -- and two for objects and flying hardware. The goal of these experiments is to reduce the adverse effects that space travel can have on astronauts' physical heath. But by studying the health benefits of exercise on astronauts, the researchers also hope to help the rapidly growing senior population who, like astronauts, doesn't exercise much. Read more for additional details and pictures about this NASA's machine."
Man, hope they keep the doors firmly bolted on that thing!
Ohh. thats the giant structure floating in space that sort of looks like a ring
I thought it was dem aliens!
58.88 m/s, or 131.72 mph, or 211.98 km/hr.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
Just notch the gravity up a few more and your hair will turn gold, your punch can shatter rocks, and you can fly in the sky.
For more information please refer to this.
The spinnerator! Whoooo!
this machine can also be used to identify fathers/mothers of not yet born children.
Amazing 2 in 1 machine assists in space research while extracting information from uncooperative terrorists! A bargain for your tax dollars!
You have tried to support your argument with faulty reasoning! Go directly to jail; do not pass Go, do not collect $200!
When we make a mistake on little things like mixing standard and metric measurements, I worry about the more complex -- designing a craft around a computer running at 1Ghz at 1G may lead to folly when electrical current is trying to move through the same circuits with twenty times the gravitational force on it.
I'm a big believer in planning, and fortunately it looks like that's going on here. Hopefully this is a sign that we're still on track for manned intrastellar exploration.
I've personally wanted to play around with a "high gravity" machine for a long time. Training in one would be the ultimate experience for any athlete I'm sure. I just wonder if the intense G's would actually strengthen your organs and bones by stress-testing them, so to speak, or just weaken them. Probably the latter.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
help the rapidly growing senior population who, like astronauts, doesn't exercise much
This seems like a really expensive way to prove that both groups just need to exercise more...
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
Well, i'd make some funny comment regarding this, but seeing how everytime I try to be humorous, I get a -1 , Troll... I'm saying nothing at all.. Still though, 20-G's pretty cool.
That article should read "20 times the terrestrial gravity OF EARTH". The terrestrial gravity of the moon is much different than the terrestrial gravity of Mars or that of Earth.
Also, I've seen something on the discovery channel (or it might have been "Bill Nye the science guy" now that I think about it) that said that astronauts exercise every day to avoid their muscles atrophying due to the lack of use due to the lower gravity in space. The show even had some video clips of astronauts using what was basically a spin cycle but with straps to keep you on the seat.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
"...about this NASA's machine."
Need I really say more?
I just want to know if it can mix a good margarita. My machine broke.
to reduce the adverse effects that space travel can have on astronauts' physical heath
By spinning the crap out them!
We've already demonstrated astronauts can survive the g-forces of entry and re-entry. Really the best way now to improve the adverse health effects of space travel is to glue their foam on tighter.
My department worked on early prototypes of this astounding mahcine, and I got a ride on one. It physically crushed the heath bar I had in my pocket, and made my lunch relocate to the floor behind my feet. If space travel is indeed like this, it is certainly not good for your physical health, or your heath, physically (only physically bad, since it is still a yummy treat, even if it is all smashed and broken).
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
experiment complete.
I've got a chance to meet a few when I was working on a college project a few years back that had Nasa ties.
Don Pettit, former ISS Science Officer, was up for around 6 months. You'd think he'd be like that Russian who was too weak to walk and had a critical loss of bone density.
Nope. He got up, and with in a week was running 10 miles or more a day. He lost essentially no bone density. Freaking fantastic shape he's in. All the astronaut core is like that. It's all about constant exercise and having impact exercise.
I'd say more, but my guild is raiding.
Now I can finally become a Super-Saiyan!
From the description, it would also seem that the mere *subject* of high gravity reduced the cognitive functions, impairs the ability to write clearly, and generally gives one the appearance of brain damage. I suppose it was written while sitting in the machine in such a way that blood was forced to the back of the brain, away from the frontal lobes.
;)
Now to see how many people comment on my own writing abilities as a sign of my equally deteriorated mental state.
a 20-G centrifuge machine that can simulate up to 20 times the terrestrial gravity
Geez, no shit sherlock. I wonder how much G earth gravity is?
I can understand if this bit of info has to be included in say a BBC report but this is supposed to be a place filled with geeks and nerds who could work out for themselves that 20G is 20 times the G force of earths gravity. Even the americans should be able to handle the math involved. The canadians might need help. The dutch? It is sunday morning. To stoned to care. Not that it being sunday morning has anything to do with that.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
> space being weightless
:)
As long as you're in orbit, you're in freefall, not weightless. It just so happens that you go far enough sideways that there's never any ground to run into. So you have weight, and you are falling, it's just that everything else is falling with you, so you don't feel the force of gravity pusing you against the shuttle or whatever you're in.
Sorry, just the obligitory physics lesson
Zoidberg: Relax, Fry. I'll simply spin you in a high-speed centrifuge, separating out the denser fluid of His Highness.
Fry: But won't that crush my bones?
Zoidberg: Oh, right, right, with the bones! I always forget about the bones.
This is NOT your father's merry-go-round or Ferris wheel...
But, NOR is it a torture device, or a gas chamber... It's a reincarnation *acceleration* chamber...(think Reagan era comments on the gas chamber...)
Officially, it's an Information Secretion Device, though it can cause EXcretion and catonia and rapid weight loss, circulatory problems and acute inverse osteoporosis... But, primarily it has variable speed success at inducing persons of interest to secrete secret informations under otherwise unpossible nomral-g sitiations......
Indeed, in the spirit of extracting every valuable penny's worth of information, we will TAX the shit out of all subjects subject to the newly-improved "Salad Spinner", aka "Vegetable Maker". The resulting past is tronger than vegemite...
Talk about extracting information (from terrorists OR from science subjects) at "dizzying speeds"
Now, just put James Bond in THAT intense G-force. I imagine almost ANYone would be "impregnable" under those harsh circumstances...
Say, has anyone got a torch? It's quite dark in heeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
I once created a 20-G centrifuge machine that simulated up to 21 times terrestrial gravity.
Nevermind Gitmo... some of these could end up in Guam, Diego Garcia, some hinterland island of the Philippines... some afloat Prison/Afloat Mobyle Einformation Extraction Fasility... anyplace where US anti-torture laws would "normally" appall, umm, apply...
Would the human inside count as a power source? If the device is properly balanced, the human inside this habit-trail might make this thing qualify as some sort of perpetual motion machine. Maybe NASA will get the first patent!
We, NASA, on behalf of DHLS, claim an apparatus enabling the constant motion of a machine, which comprises a dense food and water supply, hope-inspiring-but-useless escape tools, and a plurality of combative but resilient human subjects contained therewithin, intent on fortuitously arriving upon or fervently concocting escape plans, inducing perpetual motion of embodied device.
Further uses of this device are classified under various secrecy acts and are exempt from disclosure
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
How's your heath? My heath is fine!
"I used to have that really cool,funny sig
Bond: How fast does it go?
Goodhead: It can go up to 20Gs, but that would be fatal. 3Gs is equivalent to take-off pressure. Most people pass out at 7.
Bond: You make a great saleswoman.
Goodhead: You don't have to worry. This is what we call a chicken switch. You just keep your finger on that button and the moment the pressure gets too much for you, release the button and the power's cut off.
Bond: Just like that?!
Goodhead: Oh come on Mr Bond, a 70 year old can take 3Gs!
Bond: Well the trouble is there's never a 70 year old around when you need one...
Your ad here.
Given that the nearest black hole is 1600 light years away I'd be more interested in said craft's drive system than it's centrifuge.
Getting out of bed with 3 broken ribs (all low in front, by where the stomach muscles attach), a sprained neck and 2 bum arms took about 10 minutes each time, for the first month. I healed up just fine, it just involved putting an external fixator on my wrist for 8 weeks.
Check out the life of Dr. (Col) John Stapp, who did all the early NASA high G experiments - he got up to 35 Gs in his rocket sled experiments. Similar injuries to mine, except he had a nice cushy 6 point restraint system, as compared to my 3 point typical car seat-beltt s/content_manager_v02/view_nahf/htdocs/menu_ps.asp ?NodeID=-654157167&group_ID=1134656385&Parent_ID=- 1
http://nationalaviation.blade6.donet.com/componen
..........FULL STOP.
Formula One race car driver David Purley survived an estimated 179.8 g in 1977 when he decelerated from 107 mph (172 km/h) to 0 in a distance of 26 inches (66 cm) after his throttle got stuck wide open and he hit a wall. He suffered 29 fractures, 3 dislocations and 6 heart-stoppages.
"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
We were recently discussing CT scanners in a class... those things spin pretty damn fast, with all of the electronics experiencing something like 20G's... for hours and hours and hours. And the gantry is these days pretty damn heavy and insanely complex (i wonder how they get the data from the spinning sensors? surely not a million sliprings?) I suppose still maybe MRI is more impressive with its multi-tesla QUICKLY changing magnetic fields.
Seriously, I don't hate old people. Just the ones who drive like assholes and never get pulled over for it, but I get a ticket for 5MPH over.
Blar.
Come on guys, are we really that scared of his submissions that we need three tags composed of his name? Why not "centrifuge" or "gravity"?
another charnel very sick and its BSD machines our ability to serves to reinforce and the striking any doubt: FreeBSD is dying. Fact: Disturbing. If you some intelligent *BSD is dead. To download the bloc in order to encountered while a change to with the work, or This is consistent contributed code series of internal us the courtesy Case you w4nt to that *BSD is To this. For obsessed - give progress. Any hobby. It was all FreeBSD showed isn't a lemonade become obsessed give BSD credit 800 mhz machine exploited that. A a popular 'news Trying to dissect profits without
I hope they have a way of scraping the poor sods off the back wall! :)
There are 10 kinds of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.
The ultimate plan is to liquify the astronaughts using high G, freeze dry them and send them up in packs of 100 for storage on the ISS. Then they can be work rotated simply by boiling the kettle. Great idea so long as no one mixes them up with the food supply.
-- "Can't sleep, clowns will eat me!"
Puny little centrifuge. At NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the centrifuge can do 30 Gs with a 5000 lb payload. Here it is swinging an SUV around for no apparent reason:
/ 2003/0212suv.html
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory
A whole journal entry devoted to flaming me*. Sweet. But let me point out a couple of things.
1. You picked the fight. You started with me. You are the one who started the name calling and accusations of stupidity. In your post I was a "stupid, wise-ass arrogant asshole" who should stuff my fat face with another burger.
2. I never said I know everything. Only that there are some people in Africa who could use financial help with access to computers.
Is that wrong? If it is why don't you say why it's wrong? You never tried to explain why it's a bad idea to help get computer access to poor people (who are not starving and have clean water and education). You never even said what part of my post was wrong or why. You just brought up true, but irrelevant points like how starving, disease ridden people don't need computers. Which I never disputed.
Seriously, can you explain what parts of my posts are factually wrong?. Or explain why you even started with me in the first place. My first post on the subject never implied that computers are more important than food, clean water and infrastructure. Yet you responded as if I had made that assertion.
One thing in the entry is true though: judging by your other posts and journal entries, I am a much happier person.
*Posting AC because this is so off-topic. Since I don't have negative karma, this would actually be visible to most readers.
Just be sure to park the heads of those hard drives. It's not that I don't care about the mush you'll be turned on. It's about getting the aliens to be able to read our hard drives content.
"Whoa ... heavy."
"What is this 'heavy'. Is there something wrong with the force of gravity in your time?"
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Didn't they steal this idea from Dragonball Z?
OEÉæÁÄZÝÈA OEÉæé_CX
Crap - 20 G's? That's gonna hurt.
S -history.pdf
As I recall - back in the day - the Apollo Saturn V main stage produced around 4 G's or so and the command module escape system cranked at about 6, to make sure it could seperate from the presumably still accelerating booster stack. IIRC, the maximum safe sustained acceleration for a human is still considered to be around 12 G's. I could be wrong about that one - i'm sure someone will correct me if so.
But this isn't really new. During the 50's and I think continuing up into the 1990's the Navy operated a manned centrifuge at the Naval Air Development Center in Warminster, PA (now closed). Among it's luxury features it:
1) was capable of delivering 40 G's to a test subject in any orientation
2) was eventually fitted with a gondola capable of holding a three man crew
3) was powered by one of the largest DC motors ever built
4) still holds the record for whole-body human acceleration at 32 G's
Flannagan Grey (my dad's boss) did that one in a water jacket affectionately called the Iron Maiden. It was the only way to apply those kinds of forces to someone and not puree his insides. I saw it - you'd never get me up in one.
After they got done slinging chimps around in the thing at ridiculous accelerations and before NASA built their own it was used to train Astronauts for the Mercury and part of the Gemini programs. They moved on to flight physiology studies of military and civiian aircraft pilots, which was it's original purpose.
A concise history of that facility can be found at(PDF Warning):
http://www.crompton.com/wa3dsp/k3nal/Documents/DF
Check out chapter 3 for the Iron Maiden story.
Being associated with the facility was a great source of pride for my father and it never took much to get him to talk about it. I got to see it a few times at the NADC's open house. Very impressive.
-DL
Interesting table below - showing maximum time at given G levels.
Interestingly, from the second line and below, you're at about orbital speed
at the end of the accelleration, if it's linear.
Summary of Results: (Data primarily from: Bioastronautics Data Book,
second edition, 1973, NASA)
I - Sustained Acceleration
CAPTION: Time vs. Tolerance : G-force limits for reclining subjects
Time (min) Accel Coach (Gs) Water Immersed (Gs)
0.5 23 28
1.0 17 22
2.0 12 17
3.0 8 14
4.0 7 12
5.0 6 9
6.0 5 8
7.0 4 7
8.0 4 6
9.0 3 6
10.0 3 6
You weight a couple ounces more at the poles due to the equatorial bulge. The arctic is at sea level and little more than the antarctic whihc is at mountainous elevation.