> When it comes to the G-Forces being pushed on you, many roller coasters have peak G’s at or above these limits. Most people are probably familiar with the different rides at Walt Disney World so let’s use those for examples. At EPCOT, Mission Space is a centrifuge-based ride where you go through a simulated launch and landing on Mars. The sustained G’s on that ride is 2.5 G’s, close to how many G’s New Shepard will experience during launch.
> For the descent, Blue Origin says you must be able to withstand 5.5 G’s, if you ever rode Rock ‘n Roller Coaster at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, you would have experienced up to 5 G’s during the initial launch of the ride.
Epcot Mission Space (the "Orange" version) is pretty intense as it's really sustained G-forces, but manageable. During the ride, you have to reach in front of you to press some buttons, and that's when you feel the G-forces most. But for SpaceX/BlueOrigin, passengers do nothing.
Rock n Roller Coaster itself for the peak G is done by kids, not a big deal.
This is slightly misleading - what matters isn't the peak G force experienced, but moreso the integral of force over time. In a roller coaster you might experience 5Gs, but only for a moment. Astronauts experience 3G, but for up to 5 minutes continuously
On the Gravitron, a centrifuge carnival ride in the shape of a flying saucer, riders experience 3Gs for minutes. Best carnival ride as a kid, we rode it continuously for ages.
Oh god, I will never forget that ride. I was at a carnival when I was around 13 or 14 and rode that ride, and midway through it had a malfunction. They stopped it to address the issue, and then decided to give us an extra long ride to compensate for the problem. When it was finally over and I was about ready to stagger off of it, the operator got on the mic and said, “who wants more?!?” Seemingly everyone but me screamed for more. At that point I was too sick to make any sounds at all.
That night, hours later, as I lay on the floor of my friend’s bedroom (it was a sleepover), trying to fall asleep, I still remember feeling like the room was spinning. I never went back on that ride.
Funny, something really similar happened to me! 14 years old, at a friend's birthday party at Magic Mountain. The Superman ride was new. That's where you get into a bullet shaped gondola and get shot up a vertical tower, with a giant statue of Superman at its apex, go briefly weightless and then freefall backwards until you curve flat and brake to a stop. Never big on roller coasters, I got peer pressured into this one.
I didn't like it all that much. But what scared the hell out of me was when, on descent, the brakes malfunctioned. This caused the gondola to go screaming backwards past the platform where the next riders were lined up, fly through some butcher curtains and go crashing into a padded wall in a hidden cinder block cell at the end of the track.
We all sat there for a minute pretty stunned, and then some goofy employee came running out and jumped up on the front of the car. "Whoops! That wasn't supposed to happen!" He said. "But I have some great news for you! Who wants to go again??"
My brother and me tried this ~4 years ago (we are adults, but still, carnival is fun). I handled it well, but my brother was traumatized. I think you ought to check each future passenger if the sensation of being compressed and having troubles breathing won't trigger a phobia.
The area under the curve doesn't matter if the peak isn't big enough.
A physically fit person can probably live normally at 2g all day with no problems other than feeling tired af until you get used to it and all farts being dangerous.
I know it's not exactly the same as living in a 2g environment, but many people seem to live surprisingly long lives with a body weight that is several times what it should be.
I rode Epcot Mission Space Orange, and I didn't realize it was a centrifuge. I thought it just cleverly tipped you on your back to simulate G-forces. It certainly felt real, so it's neat to know that it was.
You can absolutely use engineering to limit the g forces. It's just a matter throttling back the engines near the end of a stage and/or staging sooner. For example, Gemini peeked at 6.4g, Apollo peeked at 4g and the Space Shuttle peeked at 3g.
3g is low enough that most humans shouldn't black out, even without training.
I'll also point out that professional astronauts are expected to remain functional for the entire assent (including emergencies, where g forces might peek much higher), which is not required for passengers.
I remember reading that the Titan 2 pushed so hard that even the astronauts, who were pretty tough test pilots back then, were happy when the engine finally shut off.
Astronauts also need to be able to survive 1) high g reentrues (apollo reached 7 gs on reentry) and abort modes, which can be very high acceleration indeed
For example, the space shuttle uses it's wings (and body) to generate quite a bit of lift and spread the reentry over a much longer period. the g-forces during re-entry. It's 10min at 1.7g.
Though that's from LEO. Apollo came in directly from the moon at a much higher velocity, resulting in ~7g; For the Apollo missions that never left earth orbit, reentry was more like 3.5g.
A space ship aiming to carry untrained passengers will pick designs and mission profiles that are within their passengers abilities to withstand for both launch and reentry. Apollo picked a design and mission profiles with 7g reentry acceleration because they knew their trained astronauts could withstand it.
As for abort.. it's only limited spikes of high-g you only need it to be survivable for the passengers, while the pilots need to be able to control it.
Most are. If you have certain heart conditions, you might not know you have them, and then die. That's why it's likely that they'd require an ECG (and maybe have an age limit and require generally reasonable health/fitness), but if you're a reasonably healthy adult, it should be fine.
Forces depend a lot of the specific vehicle. The space shuttle peaks at 3 G, I've seen numbers from 3.6 to 4.5 (again peak) for Crew Dragon on the way up, 3-5 on the way back. Soyuz seems to be 4 on a good day and 10 on a bad one, plus the momentary forces during landing.
Since we put anyone willing to pay a few bucks on carnival rides that sustain (!) up to 3 G for minutes, and the profile can likely be adjusted at the expense of reduced payload capacity, I don't expect this to be a big problem.
If William Shatner can do it in his 80s, I'm pretty sure that a substantial fraction of the population can do it.
Don't get me wrong, Shatner has worked hard to keep himself in shape. And he didn't get to orbit. But if you keep in shape (and are rich or famous) it may be an option.
Will Shatner was 90 when he was on a suborbital launch with Blue Origin. Given his wealth and access to quality healthcare etc. he was probably a decent amount healthier than the median 90 year old, but given that he was able to do it without issue I imagine the vast majority of humans under the age of ~60 or so can definitely manage.
I think astronauts usually go through very rigorous testing and training. And I'm not sure that is something we can engineer ourselves out of.