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tahanson43206

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Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 19,407

Large Ship Physical Fitness Systems

Large Ship Prime is: Large scale colonization ship by RobertDyck

This topic is offered to collect knowledge, insights and best practices for physical fitness and mental health in Large Ship

"Large Ship" is (arbitrarily) defined as 5,000 metric tons, for the purposes of calculations to be posted in this topic.

Large Ship (Prime) is designed/intended to carry 1000 passengers and 60 crew members safely and in modest comfort, on a voyage that can last up to two years.  Physical and mental health of the passengers and crew will be as important to mission planners as supply of nourishing food and provision of radiation protection.

This topic is offered to provide a focus for those who will be concentrating upon the physical fitness and mental health requirements for a successful voyage.

The physical constraints of the Large Ship habitat ring are important to keep in mind. To see the details, see the first post in the Large Ship (Prime) topic.

For this discussion, it is sufficient to plan for a width of 19 meters, and a circumference of 238 meters.

If you visit Large Ship (Prime) you will see that the baseline version incorporates only one ring.

There is no reason why a Large Ship designer needs to be constrained in the number of rings, so this topic will assume a ring dedicated to Physical Fitness and Emotional and Mental health.

For that reason, a suggested minimal feature is a running track large enough to accommodate all 1060 personnel at one time.

How much of the width would be needed for that requirement is to be determined by actual experiment on Earth.

In practice, it is likely that the physical fitness ring will be occupied by (about) a third of the population at a time.

In any case, those NewMars members who are interested in physical, mental and emotional health are welcome to contribute to this topic.

If there is a reader who is not currently a member of the forum, who would like to take part, see the Recruiting topic.

(th)

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,431

Re: Large Ship Physical Fitness Systems

Sure we can borrow the regimen from the ISS for what to do and for how long. The question since its for micro gravity how much of it will we need for a Mars gravity of more if we chose to up the rpm or change the radius of the big ship to allow for a better layout design when all things are totaled up that we need for the journey.

How do astronauts exercise in space?

astronauts on the station work out six out of seven days a week for 2.5 hours each day. The International Space Station is equipped with three machines designed to give astronauts that full-body workout: a bicycle, a treadmill, and a weightlifting machine called ARED, for Advanced Resistive Exercise Device.

held down so as to keep feet on the treadmill

RobertDyck

Moderator

From: Winnipeg, Canada

Registered: 2002-08-20

Posts: 7,934

Website

Re: Large Ship Physical Fitness Systems

I'm thinking exercycles, treadmills, running track, and Blowflex or something like it. We don't want free weights, because they weigh. The YMCA downtown Winnipeg has a running track on the second level, but for our ship, the second level will have slightly lower gravity due to shorter radius. Hmm. Based on Wikipedia entry, Mars surface gravity is 3.72076 m/s². The latest Wikipedia entry says...

The precise strength of Earth's gravity varies depending on location. The nominal "average" value at Earth's surface, known as standard gravity is, by definition, 9.80665 m/s² (32.1740 ft/s²). This quantity is denoted variously as gn, ge (though this sometimes means the normal equatorial value on Earth, 9.78033 m/s² (32.0877 ft/s²)), g0, gee, or simply g (which is also used for the variable local value).

Based on ge (the 'e' is supposed to be a subscript) = 9.78033 m/s², Mars gravity is 38.043297%.

Anyway, if the ceiling is 2.43m, and deck is 10cm thick, then radius to surface of floor of upper deck is 35.1692. That makes floor gravity 35.4896% Earth or 93.2814% that of the lower deck. Not a big difference, but a running track to prepare for Mars would work better on the lower deck.

Checking the YMCA downtown. They also have locker room and showers. Do we need that? I think can passengers just walk back to their own cabin. Can we also skip the steam room? They also have a swimming pool and a shallow pool. Um, weight, skip that. Fitness studio, racket ball court, basket ball court... too much.

Their fitness room has "Cardio machines include a variety of stationary bikes, ellipticals, Airbikes, rowers, treadmills and stair climbers. We also carry a large number of strength-training equipment and free weights."

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,431

Re: Large Ship Physical Fitness Systems

I am thinking that we would want to reduce the amount of plumbing through out the ship to reduce build complexity. But I would agree with the types of apparatuses that we can make use of.

Or some human powered machines....