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Huc Pentinat Llurba, right, a graduate student at Texas A&M University, prepares Santiago Carrasco, an undergraduate student, for a spin in the university’s centrifuge in College Station, Thursday, June 11, 2026. Texas A&M is using the centrifuge to learn how the human body responds to low-gravity environments like those seen on the moon or Mars.<\/p>\n
Andrea Leinfelder\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Huc Pentinat Llurba, right, a graduate student at Texas A&M University, prepares Santiago Carrasco, an undergraduate student, for a spin in the university’s centrifuge in College Station, Thursday, June 11, 2026. Texas A&M is using the centrifuge to learn how the human body responds to low-gravity environments like those seen on the moon or Mars.<\/p>\n
Andrea Leinfelder\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Santiago Carrasco, an undergraduate student at Texas A&M University, prepares for a spin in the university’s centrifuge\u00a0in College Station, Thursday, June 11, 2026. Texas A&M is using the centrifuge to learn how the human body responds to low-gravity environments like those seen on the moon or Mars.<\/p>\n
Andrea Leinfelder\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Huc Pentinat Llurba, top, a graduate student at Texas A&M University, prepares Santiago Carrasco, an undergraduate student, for a spin in the university’s centrifuge in College Station, Thursday, June 11, 2026. Texas A&M is using the centrifuge to learn how the human body responds to low-gravity environments like those seen on the moon or Mars. Carrasco will watch Looney Tunes while he spins.<\/p>\n
Andrea Leinfelder\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Bonnie J. Dunbar, left, an aerospace engineering professor at Texas A&M University and former NASA astronaut with a Ph.D., and\u00a0Huc Pentinat Llurba, a graduate student at Texas A&M University,\u00a0prepare\u00a0Santiago\u00a0Carrasco, an undergraduate student, for a spin in the university’s centrifuge in College Station, Thursday, June 11, 2026. Texas A&M is using the centrifuge to learn how the human body responds to low-gravity environments like those seen on the moon or Mars.<\/p>\n
Andrea Leinfelder\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Huc Pentinat Llurba, left, a graduate student at Texas A&M University, and Bonnie J. Dunbar, Ph.D., an aerospace engineering professor at Texas A&M and former NASA astronaut, prepare Santiago Carrasco, an undergraduate student, for a spin in the university’s centrifuge in College Station, Thursday, June 11, 2026. Texas A&M is using the centrifuge to learn how the human body responds to low-gravity environments like those seen on the moon or Mars.<\/p>\n
Andrea Leinfelder\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Santiago Carrasco, an undergraduate student at Texas A&M University, is seen on the screen as he spins in the university’s centrifuge in College Station, Thursday, June 11, 2026. Texas A&M is using the centrifuge to learn how the human body responds to low-gravity environments like those seen on the moon or Mars.<\/p>\n
Andrea Leinfelder\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
KBR Project Engineer Danny Nolan, back left, Texas A&M University graduate student\u00a0Huc Pentinat Llurba, center, and Texas A&M Aerospace Engineering Professor Bonnie J. Dunbar, Ph.D., watch a centrifuge from the control room at Texas A&M University in College Station, Thursday, June 11, 2026. Texas A&M is using the centrifuge to learn how the human body responds to low-gravity environments like those seen on the moon or Mars.<\/p>\n
Andrea Leinfelder\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Huc Pentinat Llurba, a graduate student at Texas A&M University, films a centrifuge as it spins at Texas A&M\u00a0in College Station, Thursday, June 11, 2026. Texas A&M is using the centrifuge to learn how the human body responds to low-gravity environments like those seen on the moon or Mars.<\/p>\n
Andrea Leinfelder\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
From left, Bonnie J. Dunbar, Ph.D., an aerospace engineering professor at Texas A&M and former NASA astronaut, Huc Pentinat Llurba, a graduate student at Texas A&M University, Santiago Carrasco, an undergraduate student, and Dimitris Lagoudas, Ph.D., interim head of the Texas A&M Department of Aerospace Engineering, pose for a picture in front of the university’s centrifuge in College Station, Thursday, June 11, 2026.<\/p>\n
Andrea Leinfelder\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Santiago Carrasco lay on his back, looking at the paused \u201cLooney Tunes\u201d intro while a graduate student attached ECG electrodes to his chest and strapped a blood pressure cuff to his arm. A four-point harness secured him to the bed that would soon start spinning.<\/p>\n
The lights dimmed, and operators in the next room turned on Porky Pig. The cartoon, playing on a screen directly above\u00a0Carrasco\u2019s face, would help prevent the 20-year-old from moving his head \u2014 controlling the Coriolis effect that might otherwise make him sick.<\/p>\n
The spinning began gradually.\u00a0Carrasco\u2019s feet were pulled into the footplate as he reached a steady speed. And it felt like he was standing on the moon \u2014 not lying on a centrifuge spinning 17 times a minute at Texas A&M University.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI couldn\u2019t feel myself rotating,\u201d said\u00a0Carrasco, an undergraduate student at Texas A&M. \u201cI knew it, like mentally, but I couldn\u2019t physically feel it.\u201d<\/p>\n
MOON: Texas companies win and lose NASA contracts as the agency pushes toward a moon base<\/a><\/p>\n Texas A&M is using the centrifuge to better understand how the human body responds to low-gravity environments such as those on the moon and Mars, where NASA wants to send its astronauts.<\/p>\n Humans evolved to live in Earth\u2019s gravity, and scientists have spent 25 years studying weightlessness on the International Space Station. But what happens between those two extremes? The moon is one-sixth the Earth\u2019s gravity, and Mars is three-eighths the Earth\u2019s gravity.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have that data because we haven\u2019t been on the moon for long periods of time and we haven\u2019t had humans on Mars,\u201d said Bonnie\u00a0J. Dunbar, an aerospace engineering professor at Texas A&M and former NASA astronaut. \u201cWe want to use those environments to study the changes in the cardiovascular system, for example, and other physiological systems so we can really prepare for those long missions.\u201d<\/p>\n The Texas A&M centrifuge was previously owned by NASA. It was built during the agency\u2019s Constellation Program, a prior moonshot, and put into storage after that program was cancelled.<\/p>\n It was later transferred to Texas A&M and Dunbar, who has a doctorate in engineering and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. KBR has a contract with Texas A&M to operate the 4,000-pound centrifuge and provide new displays and instrumentation systems at the Anthony Wood \u201987 Artificial Gravity Lab in College Station.<\/p>\n NASA has been using a facility in Germany to conduct its centrifuge and bed rest studies, where people can spend weeks in a bed to mimic the effects of weightlessness. The new Texas A&M centrifuge and its surrounding facilities, which include beds, are aiming to bring those studies to College Station.<\/p>\n The first NASA-funded centrifuge study will begin this summer.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cWe call it repatriated back here,\u201d\u00a0Dunbar said. \u201cThe only other facility that’s equal to this right now is the one in Germany.\u201d<\/p>\n Lying flat<\/p>\n Unlike centrifuges used by military pilots \u2014 who sit upright in seats similar to the airplanes they fly, sometimes experiencing up to nine times the Earth\u2019s gravity \u2014 the Texas A&M centrifuge will have participants lie flat to recreate low-gravity environments.\u00a0<\/p>\n To be clear, these individuals cannot truly shed Earth\u2019s gravity to experience weightlessness or the gravity on the moon and Mars. Instead, they will be part of an analog that mimics different levels of gravity, ranging from the\u00a0microgravity felt by astronauts floating on the International Space Station to the full gravity of Earth.<\/p>\n SPACE INSTITUTE: Preparing for a trip to the moon or Mars? New Texas A&M facility to allow testing of crucial tech<\/a><\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The centrifuge works as an analog because bed rest mimics weightlessness.<\/p>\n On Earth, a person\u2019s heart, muscles and bones work less when they\u2019re lying down. It\u2019s more comparable to\u00a0microgravity than standing, where the heart must work against the Earth\u2019s gravity to move blood from the legs to the chest and head. Muscles and bones also fight to stay upright.<\/p>\n So if lying flat is similar to being in\u00a0microgravity, then the centrifuge\u2019s spinning will increase the force on a person \u2014 from head to feet \u2014 so they\u2019re no longer \u201cweightless\u201d but on the moon or Mars, depending on how fast they spin.<\/p>\n Studying the heart<\/p>\n The Texas A&M centrifuge will initially be used to study how the heart responds to these different gravity levels. Dunbar said this will help establish the relationship between gravity and cardiovascular health, such as blood pressure, heart rate and other cardiac functions.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n This information will keep astronauts healthy as they travel farther from Earth.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ana Diaz\u00a0Artiles, an associate professor of aerospace engineering at Texas A&M who has a doctorate in aeronautics and astronautics, is the primary investigator working alongside Dunbar on the centrifuge\u2019s first NASA-funded study. The centrifuge data will complement information they have collected from other analogs, including parabolic flights and tilt tables.\u00a0<\/p>\n