Every Sunday, this blog will offer analysis of a paper on space habitation and other related topics. These are my opinions on a weekly scientific paper. They are subject to my perspectives and believes. I am open to debate, so if any reader believes I have misinterpreted something in a paper, please point it out. I'm only a student and learning how to read these papers and interpret them. All quotes are from the paper unless otherwise noted. All papers I review are available for free online.
(Image Source: Wikipedia, licensed under GFDL)
Zero-gravity environments cause to body to adapt, however these adaptations greatly weaken the human body. One way to over come this is with artificial gravity. The consensus on achieving artificial gravity is with a spinning structure that will take advantage of the pseudo, centrifugal force: a force that only exists within the frame of reference of a person on the spinning object. Previous research has suggested limiting rotational speed to 10 rpm, but this paper suggests that the speed can be pushed to 23 rpm. Previous research has concluded that limiting the rational speed is because “during head turns [in a artificial gravity environment], the changes in angular velocity caused by bringing the semicircular canals into or out of the plane of rotation can cause disorientating sensations of illusory self-motion, improper reflexive eye movements, and motion sickness.” But, senses will adapt to an environment to decrease negative effects, just like how one adjusts to a bad smell after a while.
This study has three test groups with 19 subjects divided among them. This is a fairly small sample size, so I think this study should be repeated with a larger group. But this study did have a high P-values (The chance that a sample mean would occur assuming the treatment had no affect) which means their results are significant. I would just want to see the data pinned down exactly. The three had the following treatments: group one had a dark centrifuge which they could not see out, group two had a lit environments where subjects could not see out of the centrifuge and group three had a centrifuge which they could see out of.
This study measured the subjects discomfort by measuring the number of head turns they where willing to do and asking the subjects how sick they felt with a scale where 0 represented “I'm fine” and 20 represented “I'm going to hurl”. The subjects where all volunteers so the study did not use a random sample.
The study found that with a simple hour long training session, mission control can train a crew to operate on a centrifuge in space, simulating artificial gravity. This allows to development of artificial gravity on smaller crafts. Despite confusing effects caused by a spinning plane, the human body can adapt. No matter what the frame of reference be; they can look inside the spaceship or look outside the space ship.
What do you think about this article? Do you agree with my interpretation?
