For years the imagination of architects has hypothesized spatial habitats of the most disparate shapes: hermetic spheres, geodesic domes and lantern-shaped buildings. For a Japanese research team, the future of human space colonies is shaped like a cone.
On the occasion of an event held on July 5 (video below, in English), a joint team fromKyoto University and the construction company Kajima Corporation showed images of an "artificial gravity housing structure". A structure that would be shaped in such a way as to mimic terrestrial conditions. The rotating building, 1.300 meters high and nicknamed "The Glass", will use centrifugal force to complete a complete revolution every 20 seconds. This feature will endow the building with gravity like Earth's.
A focus on research on artificial gravity at the beginning of the space tourism era
Japanese researchers say creating an environment with artificial gravity similar to that on Earth is the key to thriving in space. "Without gravity, mammals may not be able to reproduce. Their offspring may not develop well," the team explains in a Press release . "When a person grows up in a zero or low gravity environment, his body would change so that he would not be able to stand on Earth."
It's true. We have no idea how children adapt to a weightless state, NASA gravity research it has largely focused on adults. Studies show that traveling in space in the absence of artificial gravity can cause bone loss, back pain and even kidney stones.
As the space tourism becoming accessible, it will be increasingly important to study the effects of microgravity environments on the human body.
Asahi Shimbum.
Making other planets hospitable
The researchers call for other artificial gravity constructions to support settlements on other planets, as well as to develop a space transport system. And there is no shortage of even radical ideas, such as that of a system of "hexagonal space tracks" capable of maintaining normal gravity of any spacecraft that passes through it. Galaxy Express 999 (銀河 鉄 道 999 Ginga Tetsudō Surī Nain) does a lot, right?
"The United States and the United Arab Emirates propose to build a colony on Mars, but I would like to present a unique project of Japan", he declares Yosuke Yamashiki, professor of the Center for Research on Human Cosmology SIC at the University of Kyoto. "Other countries don't have the same basic technologies needed for human space exploration." Ambitious words.
They echo those of Takuya Ohno, architect and researcher of Kajima. "The development of an artificial gravity residential facility with Kyoto University will be a watershed in space research." "We will work to make this joint research meaningful to humanity."
With the Japanese you can never say: as a child I would never have said, for example, that I would see live one of those robots that fluttered on TV.
