eli5 How does artificial gravity work (in space)?
In: Physics
You go to the fair and ride the Gravitron (the flying saucer ride). All it does is spin in a circle, but you are pulled to the wall, eventually so much that the seat slides up and your feet leave the ground.
Imagine, once the Gravitron is moving, standing up – not on the floor, but on the wall.
What is happening is called centripetal force. Basically, your body wants to keep going in the direction it’s currently traveling – like coasting on a bike. Because you’re going in a circle, that direction is always “away from the middle of the circle”. Spin at the right speed and that force acts like gravity.
Now, in space you have no gravity. But you take a spinner like the Gravitron – but much larger – and spin it around the middle of your ship. On the inside of that circle – the Gravitron seats – you have “gravity”.
There are other design ideas, including just making the entire ship spin, but they all use centripetal force to generate gravity.
By rotating very fast a spacecraft you can simulate gravity, this is due to centrifugal force, i.e. the apparent force you experience in a rotating system. It’s the same reason you feel like you’re being pushed towards the sky when the rollercoaster does a loop-the-loop
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Another proposed method of simulating gravity inside a spacecraft would be to have it constantly under thrust.
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