It was a drizzly day, last year, when two researchers first took on the Wall of Death. This amusement park attraction near Parma, Italy, looks something like a giant wooden barrel with the top sawed off. But on this dreary day, exercise physiologists had commandeered the Wall for science. They would test its potential as a new way to exercise — on the moon!
Normally, daredevils on motorcycles zip along the circular Wall of Death’s interior sides. It’s a feat that seems to defy gravity. But Gaspare Pavei and Valentina Natalucci weren’t going to attempt motorcycle stunts. Indeed, there were no motor bikes. They’d be running on foot sideways, mid-way up the wall.
And, says Alberto Minetti, if they calculated things right, it would show future moon dwellers how to speed along the wall without tumbling to the ground.
Why bother? A physiologist, Minetti works at the University of Milan in Italy. His team was exploring how they might give lunar inhabitants a way to keep their bodies strong.
And because the moon has only about a sixth of Earth’s gravity, it won’t be easy. That lower gravity means our bodies won’t feel the same stresses that they would while moving on Earth.
Pounding the pavement during a run or doing pushups against Earth gravity — referred to as 1 g — builds muscle and strengthens bone. But on the moon or in space, muscles weaken and bones become brittle. Just six months in space, researchers have shown, can damage the bones as much as a decade of aging. Scientists are looking for ways to avoid this, Minetti explains.
Running horizontally along a cylinder’s curved wall generates uniform circular motion, or the so-called centrifugal force. It’s the same thing that holds water at the bottom of a bucket when whirled overhead. Enough force would keep moon runners — and scientists mimicking lunar gravity in Italy — on the wall. They’d also experience a force that would closely mimic the gravity they…
Read the full article here