Main Engine Cut OffGerstenmaier Shrugs Off Artificial Gravity
Mr. Gerstenmaier responded that all microgravity considerations are currently mitigatable with the systems in place or under development.
If by “under development” he means “We have a long-duration study going on on the ISS with an indeterminate timeline,” then sure, they’re mitigable.
Further, Mr. Gerstenmaier noted that “you’re never gonna provide a partial gravity environment throughout the entire vehicle.”
Unless you design the system that way…?
“I think the changes associated with trying to provide partial gravity are so fundamental and large … that I don’t think that’s an area that’s really a problem. [We have] real problems that need to be addressed, and partial gravity isn’t something that we should be spending quality time on right now.”
“Real problems” are the health concerns of deep space journeys, of which almost all could be eliminated with artificial gravity.
The changes associated with artificial gravity are not as much about the changes to the still-on-paper (at best) spacecraft, and more about the changes to the NASA roadmap. The need to understand long-duration microgravity health is a key rationale for the existence of the ISS, and if that aspect were eliminated, the ISS would look like a giant waste of time and money.
If we spent quality time developing and testing artificial gravity systems, we’d be to Mars much sooner, because we could be rid of the ISS budget and rid of infinite-length studies on human health in microgravity.