Artificial Gravity on Warships

[CharYui]

Hi I don't know if this is the right place for this topic or if it has been brought up before, but if it has then please link me to where it is. Now I've been re-watching some Gundam and I'm in the middle of Zeta right now, and what I've been wondering is how the heck does the gravity work in some of these situations?

I realize that in some ships there are gravity blocks, such as the large ones that rotate around the Argama. So its natural to see people walking around and doing stuff normally in those sections I can get that. But what I don't get is that in some places outside of the gravity blocks there seems to be at least SOME gravity in which people just walk around and don't float all over the place, this occurrence is most notable in the bridges of these ships.

Now its most likely some animation contrivance so they don't have to animate people floating around all the time and what not, but I was wondering if there was some kind of in-universe explanation. Is there low level gravity being produced by the Minovsky Particle generation systems? Do they have magnets on the bottoms of their shoes? If there are any explanations or random theory's I'd love to hear it, this kind of thing drives me nuts.

[Koshernova]

Because of the way crew members float around until they land on their feet (at least in UC), I've always assumed magnetized shoes and floors. This would make it easy enough to walk, I'd imagine. Notice how in emergency situations people rarely bother walking, they just float about, and if a ship takes a hit, people tend to get knocked off their feet and also start floating about.

HOWEVER, I'm not claiming official fact or anything, this is just from watching the UC shows.

[SchizophrenicMC]

I dunno, I just always took it as their walking style having been modified, by years of living in space, and dealing with bouts of moving around in microgravity, so they don't bounce as much, and can control their center of mass so they stay down.

But don't take what I say to mean too much. Some longer-term member will give a more concise, correct answer.

[Brave Fencer Kirby]

Yeah, it's really mostly just an animation shortcut; they should be floating about but artists are more used to drawing people who stick to the floor, so they do that instead of slavishly adhering to Newtonian physics in every single shot. If you want an in-universe explanation, I suppose it's possible that the floor and/or their shoes are surfaced somehow to provide enough friction to allow more-or-less normal walking, but as far as I know there's never been anything actually indicating that that's the case.

[Dendrobium Stamen]

Tomino's Mobile Suit Gundam novels specifically mention the means behind this - if I recall correctly, it notes that Musai cruisers (and by extension Zeon warships in general, presumably) are outfitted with velcro carpets to keep the crew fastened down despite the microgravity onboard.

Now comes the really curious question: where the merry heck would Zeon put a gravity wheel in a Musai? The thing's rather "unique" shape makes it fairly unsuited to an internal hamster wheel device, and there's clearly no Argama-style external block, so... presumably, Principality crews assigned to their workhorse cruisers have to forego even simulated gravity while on deployment?

[SchizophrenicMC]

Tomino's Mobile Suit Gundam novels specifically mention the means behind this - if I recall correctly, it notes that Musai cruisers (and by extension Zeon warships in general, presumably) are outfitted with velcro carpets to keep the crew fastened down despite the microgravity onboard.

Now comes the really curious question: where the merry heck would Zeon put a gravity wheel in a Musai? The thing's rather "unique" shape makes it fairly unsuited to an internal hamster wheel device, and there's clearly no Argama-style external block, so... presumably, Principality crews assigned to their workhorse cruisers have to forego even simulated gravity while on deployment?

That said, do Salamis-class have gravity blocks?

[toysdream]

As Dendrobium Stamen notes, Tomino's Gundam novels attribute this to velcro shoes. I think we can all agree that magnets would be a much more plausible, and quieter, alternative.

As for gravity wheels, this feature is limited only to a handful of larger ships. The White Base and, apparently, the Nahel Argama have internal rotating blocks; the Argama has external blocks that rotate around the ship. As for standard cruisers like the Salamis and Musai, forget it.

-- Mark

[mcred23]

As Dendrobium Stamen notes, Tomino's Gundam novels attribute this to velcro shoes. I think we can all agree that magnets would be a much more plausible, and quieter, alternative.

Aren't magnets mentioned in the novels as what the Federation uses in their shoes for zero-G areas? I flipped through the book quickly and couldn't find it, but maybe someone else might know where it is (If they are actually mentioned ).

[SchizophrenicMC]

As for gravity wheels, this feature is limited only to a handful of larger ships. The White Base and, apparently, the Nahel Argama have internal rotating blocks; the Argama has external blocks that rotate around the ship. As for standard cruisers like the Salamis and Musai, forget it.

-- Mark

My point, exactly. While Zeons had to forgo gravity for extended stays, so did Feddies. It was just an inescapable fact of space combat.

You know, all this talk of magnets, space, and wheels. Makes me feel like I'm on trollscience. Only, I can't enjoy my infinite energy, and be jelly.

[Enileph]

Actually velcro would be a good solution... you may get stuck to your MS with those magnetic shoes...

[blind_dead_mcjones]

Actually velcro would be a good solution... you may get stuck to your MS with those magnetic shoes...

on the flipside there's no way one could take a situation an officer entering or leaving a given room seriously

[Auto-Fox]

Just a thought, but it may not be that the shoes are magnetic. Perhaps most shoes in the UC time-line just have metal strips in the soles, and the floors THEMSELVES are slightly magnetic. It would not take a fantastically strong magnetic field to hold someone down in zero-G, either.
It would explain how pilots and technicians don't stick to their Mobile Suits, at least.
Or, for the "Velcro" option, it might not be Velcro, but maybe a high-friction surface that "sticks" to the soles of shoes. Or, maybe a "stud and tube" connection system, like Lego pieces.
I dunno...

[Phoenix012]

I recall an earlier topic where we determined that most larger ships had centrifugal gravity with a rotating cylinder inside the hull. Of course even those ships still had many areas that did not have gravity and it seems that some sort of magnetic or adhesive boots would be required. Details on this seem pretty scant though.

If you're curious, the other topic can be found here.

[1-4-4]

Because of the way crew members float around until they land on their feet (at least in UC), I've always assumed magnetized shoes and floors. This would make it easy enough to walk, I'd imagine.

In actuality, this approach doesn't work. Just in case a proof was needed, they tried it on Skylab.

The basic problem is that even if your feet stick to the floor, if your body doesn't have (apparent) weight, you can't control (and move) your center of mass via balance. If you tried to pull your left foot off the floor, the force (magnetism or whatever) holding your foot there would resist, and your whole body would tilt off to the left.

The system could probably work as a set of computer-controlled electromagnets interacting with uniform magnetic fields between the floor and ceiling - if the system responded to your orientation and cooperated with your efforts to walk, it would probably be workable with practice.

[Enileph]

Well, some kind of computer controlled magnetic shoes with a simple on/off function can solve the problem, to the point of scceptic sci-fi reality at least.

Plus, you can moon-walk with those shoes! Think of everyone moon-walking on the ship!