Moon: Concept city design with artificial gravity
The cone-shaped, 1,300-feet-tall Moon base concept — dubbed “The Glass” — rotates once every 20 seconds, allowing it to use centrifugal force to simulate Earth normal gravity. It would also contain its very own ecosystem complex with trees, plants and even bodies of water. Individual Glass cities would be connected by a transportation system called “Hexatrack” that could even leave the Moon and provide artificial gravity in space. The team have said they hope to construct a prototype of The Glass on the lunar surface by the year 2050 at the latest.
Project leader Professor Yosuke Yamashiki of Kyoto University and his colleagues formerly worked with the Tokyo-based Kajima Corporation to build Japan’s first ultra-high rise building back in the sixties.
Professor Yamashiki “The day when humans will live in outer space, on the Moon, and on Mars is just around the corner.
“NASA has positioned low gravity as a key issue for human life in space.”
Living in low gravity environments has various negative effects on the human body, including causing muscle mass to decrease, bone density to deteriorate and bodily fluids to shift headwards.
The latter is understood to make it very difficult to become sexually aroused — a serious impediment to the reproduction that will be essential if humanity to establish long-term colonies on Moon, Mars, or long-term missions into deep space.
However, the problems may not end there.
Prof. Yamashiki explained: “Research on low gravity has been limited to maintaining adult bodies and its effects on the birth and growth of children have not yet been studied.
“Without gravity, mammals may not be able to give birth successfully. Even if they were able to give birth, mammals would not be able to develop normally in low gravity.
“If a person grows up in low gravity, they would not be able to stand on the Earth.
“Therefore, we propose an ‘artificial gravity habitat’ that can generate gravity equivalent to Earth’s environment by utilising centrifugal force caused by rotation in space, on the Moon or Mars, as the core technology for human space exploration.
Prof. Yamashiki continued: “We believe people should live in the facility on a daily basis and enjoy the low gravity of the Moon and Mars and the weightlessness of space only when they are working, conducting research or enjoying leisure.
“By living in the facility, human beings will be able to have children without anxiety and maintain a physical condition that allows them to return to Earth at any time.”
The world’s wealthiest entrepreneurs — including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Sir Richard Branson — are all exploring the potential space tourism, with an eye to establishing permanent bases on the Moon.
Prof. Yamashiki added: “We envision a future in which human migration to the Moon and Mars becomes a Reality in the latter half of the 21st century.”
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Individual Glass cities — whether on the Moon or Mars — would be connected by the hexatrack train system.
Railgun technology, the team said, would be used to fire the train into orbit, where a base station would pack the six cars of each train into a hexagonal support structure that maintains artificial gravity by rotating, just like the cities.
In this way, people could travel between base stations orbiting the Earth, Moon and Mars without experiencing the deleterious effects of low gravity.
Prof Yamashiki said: “In a future space society where life on the Moon and Mars will become a reality, each colony will conduct economic activities, and many people will travel for business and tourism.
“The Hexatrack system is an artificial gravity transportation system based on a rotating train system to minimise the health effects of low gravity during long-term travel.”