ARTIFICIAL GRAVITY AS A COUNTERMEASURE AGAINST ADVERSE EFFECTS OF WEIGHTLESSNESS

Publisher Summary This chapter describes artificial gravity as a countermeasure against the adverse effects of weightlessness. One of the goals of space medicine is to develop such countermeasures that would be, on the one hand, efficient and safe and, on the other hand, not encumbersome for crewmembers. Artificial gravity generated by spacecraft rotation may afford the best solution of the problem. From the biomedical point of view, the advantages and disadvantages of artificial gravity can well be understood only on the basis of the results of long-term space flights. In 1975, the studies on plants and lower vertebrates flown aboard the Soviet biosatellite Cosmos-782 showed that the biological effects of artificial gravity of 1 g generated by a centrifuge in a prolonged space flight were similar to those of earth gravity. The artificial gravity of 0.3 g proved sufficient to eliminate weightlessness-induced structural changes in the mitochondria and myofibers of cardiac and skeletal muscles of turtles.