So, here's a question I've long considered after reading "Sphere". I'm wondering what the possibility of creating a suit, or pod design for spacecraft to encapsulate a person with liquid. This would allow them to take extreme amounts of g-forces without blacking out, or suffering injury. I know that the French worked with a basic suit design, but they found the water in the liner would pool towards the center of the person.

The design used in 'The Abyss' with fully immersed, does only so good, and for only so long. I'm scuba certified, and know the amazing pressures that just going down to 100' of water can do to someone. But putting that pressure on a system that's surrounding an individual...there's a different story. Could that be implemented in capsule design to protect future space crews? What would be the effect on the craft as well?

The G causes blackout due to lack of blood to the brain. Gravity pulls it away, lacking oxygen and other essentials, the system shuts down.

Attempts to mitigate this via suit pressure are currently used by the way of inflatable air bladders that press into the body to prevent blood pooling. It's theoretically possible to replace the air with a fluid, but air's lighter.

If you could somehow render it breathable, then a non-newtonian fluid - like custard - might be able to resist the application of the G-force. But then again, the total mass of the fluid might just add to the pressure exerted on the organism overall.

Hey EyeR,

I know all about that science for g-forces. My question is in regards to creating a suit, or capsule design that fully envelopes crew with a fluid? Imagine a bean bag chair that is filled with a liquid gel. When a crew member sits in it, the "chair" encloses them. They have systems/controls and visual displays while they are enveloped within the chair, but outer pressure forces are only applied to the liquid shell.

Current G-suits only allow for approximately 10% coverage that creates pressure around the thighs, arms, chest and abdomen to restrict blood flow to help the pilot not black out. Would the "chair" or capsule concept work better?

Yes, the explaination wasn't entirely for you personally, meerly highlighting the actual mechanical failure, and current mitigation strategy.

Enclosing in a fluid, the weight of the fluid itself is likely to add to the pressure applied, and felt on the body - commonly fluids are a lot denser than air so likely to be noticable. Especially 7+ G. This pressure might be be "universal" enough to prevent pooling - Experiments are the only sure fire way to find out. It's possible a non-newtonian fluid might be able to eat some of the energies transfered by increasing G and thusly reduce overall load transferred to the recipient inside. Or it might push off itself harder and crush them easier. Experiments! Volunteers required, names on the back of a postcard and sent to the usual address.

"Capsule" I think would be suitable, methinks, allows for immersion of recipient and containment of the "fluid/gel" once in 0 G.

I have heard of something similar that is already being tested called the Libelle Suit, or Dragonfly suit.

It's a crazy idea and I'm not sure if it could work, but what if we create an external pump that can be attached and detached with ease to the circulatory system. Such a system would detect acceleration and support the heart by pumping with enough force to keep the blood flowing.

Just my 2 cents.

In theory it's able to provide for mitigation - it would need to have rapid response. Inappropriately applied it'd cause some serious damages to the organics I'd wager.

That might be a possibility for long-term missions. I'm just wondering about the short-term. Did anyone ever watch the show Babylon 5? Their fighters had 16 thrusters. Now how would their bodies react making extreme directional changes? Even in the series Galactica, they make crazy direction changes. What effects do these have on the bodies in space? Do they feel them?

Inertia is another key point - in things like Star Trek they have "inertial dampeners" which is what makes it possible for the ship to make such high-G maneuvers without throwing the crew that isn't strapped down across the bridge, or liquifying when the ship jumps to warp and the wall jumps to meet them faster than the speed of light - it's possibly related to the unspecified artifical gravity systems - I have no idea on a physics level how to provide for these features.

The "crazy direction changes" would certainly be felt as G as most of you continues to attempt to travel in the previous direction. There's structural limits to the organics and they are dissapointingly low. In such shows the ships do not commonly even behave like they are in microgravity, instead conforming to more viewer expectations of a jet fighter or similar. Attempts to pull off ½ the things I've seen would more than likely just result in uncontrollably spining - the center of thrust needs to align center of mass, or that alone will spin, and it needs to align center of momentum(you can be a little off, here, but not vastly) or you'll end up rotating yourself(in relation to the target) more than changing your direction. And everyone seems to rock about with the engines flat out all the time, too, slowing down is even more important...

This is kinda funny due to me having a dream about this exact idea. I once seen and experiment done with a balloon in water moving at a fast rate and the balloon was not affected due to the water absorbing all of the G force being created. To create a capsule that can fill with water upon departing Earth and then once you've reached orbit the water would then filter out to a part of the craft and be stored for the next trip. The water would absorb all the G force and the rider would/should experience less to no G forces. We can't be lazy or scared to make these changes needed. If we make water part of our transport pods mandatory, when can then create a zero G experience.