Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Cavagna, G. A
• Willems, P. A
• Heglund, N. C

Titel

Walking on Mars

Ist Teil von

• Nature (London), 1998-06, Vol.393 (6686), p.636-636

Ort / Verlag

England: Nature Publishing Group

Erscheinungsjahr

1998

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Sometime in the near future humans may walk in the reduced gravity of Mars. Gravity plays an essential role in walking. On Earth, the body uses gravity to 'fall forwards' at each step and then the forward speed is used to restore the initial height in a pendulum-like mechanism. When gravity is reduced, as on the Moon or Mars, the mechanism of walking must change. Here we investigate the mechanics of walking on Mars onboard an aircraft undergoing gravity-reducing flight profiles. The optimal walking speed on Mars will be 3.4 km h−1 (down from 5.5 km h−1 on Earth) and the work done per unit distance to move the centre of mass will be half that on Earth.