space stations

Lemur IIa is a robot designed to autonomously inspect and maintain in-orbit space equipment such as the Orion crew exploration vehicle. Shown below on a model space telescope, the Lemur IIa was envisioned as an orbital Swiss Army knife. Each limb has four degrees of freedom and a "quick connect” feature, allowing astronauts to swap in different repair tools as needed.

There's nothing like washing down some freeze-dried space grub with a gulp of what you and your crewmates excreted just days prior. NASA announced yesterday that the recently installed urine and sweat recycling system on the International Space Station (ISS) has begun to churn out good, potable water, fit for consumption in orbit and terrestrially (though don't expect it to compete with Evian). To celebrate, ISS crewmembers and NASA folk on Earth raised a toast Wednesday and took a drink.

While it might seem thrilling compared to your cubicle, working on the moon could prove to be just as drab and mundane a job in the long run. Chester Spell, a professor at the Rutgers School of Business, has done research that suggests the lunar settlements of tomorrow—and, for that matter, the space stations of today—could pose serious mental-health challenges for employees working in semi-isolation. Spell says that anxiety will likely be heightened in a lunar living space, and depression more apt to spread from one crew member to another. —Greg Mone

I often see, in representations of space stations and space vehicles,
a chamber that revolves or spins, producing artificial gravity. How is that possible? If the object is floating and the room starts spinning, it will simply spin around the object. Centrifugal force depends on gravity to work, doesn't it?

Paul Holtzheimer
Custer, Wash.