What side effects would my proposed Gravity Chamber have on the human body?

[JoeRoccoCassara]

A gravity chamber is possible, just increase the number of molecules per cubic centimeter. Do this by sucking in air from outside the gravity chamber, and trapping it inside, you suck the air in using a propeller just like the ones seen in jet engines, and then you trap it by closing the hole above the jet that sucks in the air, so the air can‘t get out. And then you open up a hole underneath the jet, and the air will be pushed into the chamber, and then you shut the hole underneath the jet, and open up the one above the jet, and repeat the process.

 

In the gravity chamber, you can experience over 2 G’s, and exorcise under twice the gravity of the earth. Your muscle mass will build up twice as fast as it would on earth. This is just as sufficient as genetic anabolic engineering, but its natural, it will make your bones denser, and unlike genetic engineering, your muscles will not be abnormally large, instead they will be harder, and more toned.

 

But what side effects would long term strength training under 2 or 3 G's have on the human body?

 

I define long term as several months.

 

Remember, we are not increasing gravity, just air pressure.

[Janus]

Your last line says it all, you are not increasing gravity. In fact, you are not even going to increase the effect of gravity. A person would not experince increased G's inside such a chamber, in fact, the effect would be the opposite, they would weigh very slighty less due to the increased buoyancy of the air.

 

Also, your "jet engine" method of increasing the air pressure seems very inefficient, when you can just use a standard air pump.

[Buffy]

Not clear on what this has to do with gravity at all...

 

What you've described is a pressure chamber, frequently used for all sorts of things, most familiarly with deep-dive decompression. I have a friend who is being treated for Lyme Disease, and they put her in one (they call it "taking a dive") for hours at a time over several weeks to increase absorption of antibiotics.

 

Sealab back in the 60s and other experiments since have put people in high-pressure conditions for extended and uninterrupted periods of time with apparently no serious side-effects.

 

But of course this is just high-pressure and has nothing to do with gravity.

 

Am I missing something here?

 

Lose weight fast,

Buffy

[JoeRoccoCassara]

Your last line says it all, you are not increasing gravity. In fact, you are not even going to increase the effect of gravity. A person would not experince increased G's inside such a chamber, in fact, the effect would be the opposite, they would weigh very slighty less due to the increased buoyancy of the air.

 

Also, your "jet engine" method of increasing the air pressure seems very inefficient, when you can just use a standard air pump.

 

I thought the more molecules per cubic centimeter, the more pressure you feel, not the other way around.

[TheBigDog]

A gravity chamber is possible, just increase the number of molecules per cubic centimeter. Do this by sucking in air from outside the gravity chamber, and trapping it inside, you suck the air in using a propeller just like the ones seen in jet engines, and then you trap it by closing the hole above the jet that sucks in the air, so the air can‘t get out. And then you open up a hole underneath the jet, and the air will be pushed into the chamber, and then you shut the hole underneath the jet, and open up the one above the jet, and repeat the process.

 

In the gravity chamber, you can experience over 2 G’s, and exorcise under twice the gravity of the earth. Your muscle mass will build up twice as fast as it would on earth. This is just as sufficient as genetic anabolic engineering, but its natural, it will make your bones denser, and unlike genetic engineering, your muscles will not be abnormally large, instead they will be harder, and more toned.

 

But what side effects would long term strength training under 2 or 3 G's have on the human body?

 

I define long term as several months.

 

Remember, we are not increasing gravity, just air pressure.

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[Jay-qu]

Pressure and G's are different things Gardamorg. While if the Earth had more G's the pressure of our atmosphere would be greater, that doesnt mean that training at high pressure will have the same effect as high G's.

 

Pressure chambers or hyperbaric units, are used to give high concentration and high pressure oxygen to patients.

 

^check that out I didnt mean that to happen

[CraigD]

A gravity chamber is possible, just increase the number of molecules per cubic centimeter.

…

But what side effects would long term strength training under 2 or 3 G's have on the human body?

As Janus and Buffy point out, what Gardamorg’s describing is a hyperbaric chamber, and doesn’t have much impact on the force of gravity experienced by a person or object in it.

 

I think the “gravity chamber” Gardamorg has in mind could be realized using a centrifuge. To the best of my knowledge, there are only a few of these in the world, for use in research and training of military pilots and astronauts. Though capable of producing very high accelerations – as many as 20 Gs (about 200 m/s/s) – none of them appear to be well suited to several months of continuous occupancy, as the person-containing chambers are fairly small, resembling aircraft cockpits.

 

Even without having a big, manned centrifuge to try the proposed experiment, I think we can make some reasonable guesses about the effect of prolonged exercise at 2 g, based on simple “backyard experiments”. Try this: find a friend about the same mass as you; give him a piggyback ride. Do your usual daily walking, including inclines, stairs, and (shudder) ladders. Unless you’ve previously done a lot of leg strength training (eg: for competitive weightlifting, bodybuilding, American football, etc.) you’ll likely find the experience exhausting, and be unable to manage more than a few hundred meters.

 

If you persisted in this exercise - or, a more accurate simulation than riding a friend piggyback 24 hours a day, wore special cloths – a “weight suit” - with a mass equal to you body distributed in as close proportion as the mass of the body parts covered (including roughly a 5 kg helmet) - the effect might, I imagine, be similar to that experienced by an athlete following a very intense and varied weight training program. Your muscles, especially the already large ones in your legs, would grow much larger and stronger. Less visibly, the density of your load-bearing bones would increase.

 

I also imaging that injury would be a problem. Our joints, vertebrae, and other load-bearing bones, as well as the ligaments connecting them and the tendons and muscles supporting them, are poorly suited to continuous strenuous use, and would become hurt and inflamed. Unlike injury following excessive physical exercise, in a constant 2 g centrifuge, you’d be unable to fully relieve the strain long enough to allow the inflammation to decrease and micro-injuries of tissues to heal normally. I suspect your injuries might grow progressively worse, until you were an aching, nearly crippled mess.

 

Another body system that might suffer under prolonged increase weight (the term for the force experience due to gravity or gravity-like force) would be the respiratory. Even when we don’t experience coughing and other expectoration, our lungs constantly expel excess fluid, both that produced internally, and inhaled. Under increased weight, the lungs might not be adequate to this task. Such a condition can occur in normal gravity, when the lung produce excessive fluid due to acute or chronic disease, or the strength of the lung’s actuating muscles (the diaphragm) is reduced due to fatigue, anesthesia, or post-surgical pain, leading to accumulation of fluid, and typically infection, a serious, treatable condition called pneumonia.

 

I also suspect fluid accumulation in other tissues – bloating – might be a problem. It’s difficult to speculate enough to gain confidence that we’ve considered all the body systems that might malfunction under increased weight.

 

Note that all of the above apply only in the case of an experiment involving a centrifuge or similar mechanical accelerator, not the much cheaper “weight suit” experiments I suggested.

 

It’s a guess, but I think that a young person in good health trained extensively (in normal gravity) in a scientifically designed program to be able to withstand unceasing increased weight, aided with daily doses of mild drugs such as analgesics and diuretics and a special, increased calories and vitamin diet, might be able to endure a month or more of 2 g. Without this, I suspect the subject would rapidly – likely within a day or two – become so fatigued and sickened that their long-term health, and eventually, survival, was in peril.

[CraigD]

I thought the more molecules per cubic centimeter, the more pressure you feel, not the other way around.

Yes, but the pressure is uniform – the same everywhere - producing a force against every surface of your body, both upward, downward, north, south, east and west. Air pressure no more pushes you into the ground than it pushes you north or south.

 

More, your body is full of contained and dissolved gas at the same pressure as the air outside, so not only are you outside body surfaces being forced inward, but your inside surfaces are being forced equally outward. Otherwise, your body would collapse like a squeezed tube of toothpaste. The force of one atmosphere (about 100000 N/m^2) on an average human body (about 2 m^2 area) is about 200000 N, the equivalent of a moderately loaded (20 ton) tractor trailer truck.

 

Dissolved gas – primarily nitrogen – presents one of the greatest hazards to people under high air pressures. At about 4 atm pressure – about 30 m under water – dissolved nitrogen and other usually harmless blood gasses effect the nervous system, in ways not well understood by neuroscience, resulting in nitrogen narcosis, a condition producing potentially debilitating drunkenness-like symptoms. For this reason, people scuba diving or living in deep underwater habitats usually breathe gas mixes with much of the nitrogen replaced by helium.

[JoeRoccoCassara]

I understand, thanks for clearing that.

 

EDIT: Sorry for asking the question that you answered, I missed your long, detailed and explanatory post. You would have to be in a fine condition to be able to endure 2 G's for more than a month.

 

I myself am a freshman (Highschool) wrestler that struggles with bad eating habits, but after being a wrestler for two years, I am starting to become defined and toned, despite my eating habits, thanks to the weight training required for freshmen wrestlers, but I was sore when the weight training started.