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Though these changes are usually temporary, some do have a long-term impact on human health. Short-term exposure to microgravity causes space adaptation syndrome, self-limiting nausea caused by derangement of the vestibular system. Long-term exposure causes multiple health problems, one of the most significant being loss of bone and muscle mass.
Gravitational biology is the study of the effects gravity has on living organisms. Throughout the history of the Earth life has evolved to survive changing conditions, such as changes in the climate and habitat. However, one constant factor in evolution since life first began on Earth is the force of gravity.
Artificial gravity, or rotational gravity, is thus the appearance of a centrifugal force in a rotating frame of reference (the transmission of centripetal acceleration via normal force in the non-rotating frame of reference), as opposed to the force experienced in linear acceleration, which by the equivalence principle is indistinguishable from ...
Even before the very beginning of human space exploration, serious and reasonable concerns were expressed about exposure of humans to the microgravity of space due to the potential systemic effects on terrestrially evolved life forms adapted to Earth gravity. Unloading of skeletal muscle, both on Earth via bed-rest experiments and during ...
Of particular interest from a biological perspective are the effects of reduced gravitational force felt by inhabitants of spacecraft. Often referred to as " microgravity ", the lack of sedimentation, buoyancy, or convective flows in fluids results in a more quiescent cellular and intercellular environment primarily driven by chemical gradients.
Beginning in 1967, NASA successfully began its Biosatellite program that initially took frog eggs, amoeba, bacteria, plants and mice and studied the effects of zero gravity on these biological life forms. [26] Studies of human life in space have augmented the understanding of the effects of adjusting to a space environment, such as alterations ...
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The gravitational force is a fictitious force. There is no gravitational acceleration, in that the proper acceleration and hence four-acceleration of objects in free fall are zero. Rather than undergoing an acceleration, objects in free fall travel along straight lines ( geodesics ) on the curved spacetime.