Ask Ethan: Is antigravity even possible? | by Ethan Siegel | Starts With A Bang! | Nov, 2024
Humans, when we consider space travel, recognize the need for gravity. Without our planet, is artificial or antigravity even possible?
For as long as we’ve been thinking about journeying to other star systems and the planets and worlds that orbit them, we’ve been compelled to consider just how to keep human beings intact during any journey that would bridge the interstellar distances. While short trips through the zero-gravity environment of space might be feasible for humans, over longer time periods, human bodies suffer from all sorts of maladies: space blindness, bone density loss, muscle atrophy, and much more. While instantaneous teleportation or faster-than-light travel, either through a wormhole or via warp drive, might be satisfactory solutions for science fiction, when it comes to reality, we need a superior plan.
What sorts of options are there, either for antigravity or for artificial gravity, if we want to make such a solution realistic and feasible? Are there any that don’t violate the laws of General Relativity themselves? That’s what Steven Fredman wants to know, asking:
“Antigravity and non-rotational artificial gravity have been a staple of science fiction for years. But if General Relativity is correct (as it certainly…
