10-01-2015, 08:30 AM
(09-30-2015, 02:19 PM)antred Wrote: Hmm, but how would you position such a centrifuge in an environment that already has a low but not negligible gravity component? If you make it spin around a vertical axis then people we still get pulled "down" at 0.38 G. If you make it spin around a horizontal axis, then "gravity" as felt by people living in the thing would vary from 1 G - 0.38 G = 0.62 G at the top to 1 G + 0.38 G = 1.38 G at the bottom of the centrifuge. Or have I completely misread your comment?
You would have to angle the floor. But not very much; I looked at this once for Mars, and it turns out that to get 1G, you end up having to spin nearly as fast as you would in space; that 1/3 G to the side just doesn't end up contributing that much. So the floor would be almost parallel to the spin axis.
I'm not aware of any paper that has analyzed that idea in any detail... I keep meaning to do it, but you know, I've been busy.
If anybody knows of one I've missed, please let me know!
Joe Strout
Lead Developer, High Frontier