Don't spin the Dragon. Build a rotating ring inside that holds the rat cages.
Regarding the topic, it is a brilliant idea to create a micro environment to replicate a larger scale human option. If it did work, then tethering two capsules fifty meters apart for a human experiment would work. Maybe keep a dragon ISS supply capsule up after a mission and then a human rated dragon to follow. Use the supply module as an anchor on one side and have astronauts on the ISS man the capsule and run a two week test near the ISS and see if the occupants have regained any muscle mass.
Quote from: DaveH62 on 08/24/2011 02:39 amRegarding the topic, it is a brilliant idea to create a micro environment to replicate a larger scale human option. If it did work, then tethering two capsules fifty meters apart for a human experiment would work. Maybe keep a dragon ISS supply capsule up after a mission and then a human rated dragon to follow. Use the supply module as an anchor on one side and have astronauts on the ISS man the capsule and run a two week test near the ISS and see if the occupants have regained any muscle mass. The rotational velocity of the objects at the ends of the tether would probably exceed the velocity required for re-entry, which means that when the tether breaks (they all break eventually), there is a chance that one of the end masses will find itself in an orbit with a perigee at sea level.
If you use rings inside the capsule to spin gravity, then you can also have a control group weightless.Not to go too off topic, I think a dragonlab mission to L1 would be much better suited for a solar radiation mitigation experiment.
Unfortunately small centrifuges are of much more limited use than one might think - especially for humans. You just cannot reliably test how wall a person or an animal handles different G levels if the Coriolis effect (if rpm is above a certain point) is significant.
Mice in a spinning recoverable orbital habitat. A decent idea, if not an original one:http://web.mit.edu/aeroastro/marsgravity/mission.html
If you use rings inside the capsule to spin gravity, then you can also have a control group weightless.
If you have rings moving in one direction a mass can rotate in the opposite direction to counteract the effects of the torque.
Quote from: A_M_Swallow on 08/24/2011 08:25 pmIf you have rings moving in one direction a mass can rotate in the opposite direction to counteract the effects of the torque.Yes, but as any gyro would offer a lot or resistance to non axial rotations.