Astronaut to Run the Boston Marathon From Space

BostonBehindTheScenes writes "American astronaut Sunita Williams will run 26.2 miles on a treadmill on Patriot's Day (April 16th for those of you outside of Massachusetts) while runners on the ground will compete in the 111th Boston Marathon, according to this New Scientist article. And yes, she is an actual registered participant who qualified by finishing among the top 100 women in the Houston Marathon in 2006. NASA's press release touts this as yet another space first."

Pork.

[Morky (577776)]

I protest! She is wasting precious oxygen paid for by you the taxpayer.

Re:

[arivanov (12034)]

And when exactly did the US taxpayers pay for the environmental control module and its shipment to orbit?

Hint - it is one of the non-US components.

Re:

[Sobrique (543255)]

Parent post didn't mention the US at any point. Or does the fact that it might be a european taxpayer make it all ok?

Re:Pork.

[arivanov (12034)]

That should actually be the Russian taxpayer (primary life support is provided by the Zvezda module). And I do not particularly recall any historical period when the rulers of Russia gave a flying fuck about their cittizen's thoughts on governmental spending. In fact, modern Russian state is founded on government diverting taxation money from where it is supposed to go. That what Ivan Kalita (the Wallet) did to start the second Russian state and the tradition has carried on from there onwards.

Re:

[bhsurfer (539137)]

Funny (or not), you've pretty accurately described the American government's thoughts on spending as well.

Re:Pork.

[GreyPoopon (411036)]

Or does the fact that it might be a european taxpayer make it all ok?

Speaking as an American, I'm perfectly happy to let the Europeans pay my taxes. *duck*

She'll finish first, though

[Migraineman (632203)]

The ISS is moving at 7.726 km/s (I checked this morning - I'm running Orbitron to track a different satellite [navy.mil].) 26.2 miles converts to 42.165 km, so she should traverse the course length in about 5.5 seconds.

How many steps does it take to complete a marathon from low earth orbit? A one ... a two ... a three. Three.

Is this really fair?

[F-3582 (996772)]

Physiologically speaking, you don't have any gravity for your blood stream, specifically your heart, to handle. In my opinion you can't compare such a run to a real one!

Re:Is this really fair?

[MyLongNickName (822545)]

Lighten up. I seriously doubt her numbers will be "official". She is running on a treadmill in zero G. It is publicity for the Boston Marathon, and likely good physiological research for NASA.

Re:

[Rogerborg (306625)]

Freefall, not zero-G.

Re:Is this really fair?

[khallow (566160)]

It's called zero gee by the people who fly people into space and refers to the acceleration of the astronaut's frame of reference. Freefall without rotation is a zero gee environment. Good enough for me even though technically the astronauts live in a 10^-3 or 10^-4 gee environment due to tidal forces and the mass of the ISS.

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[martin-boundary (547041)]

Well, the fact that the astronaut's frame of reference is *rotating* in orbit around the earth should tell you everything you need to know about whether it's accelerating or not.

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[khallow (566160)]

But it's not from the astronaut's point of view. In other words, the astronaut experiences no force. Hence, they are in zero gee. I really don't see a need to continue this pedantic argument. As I understand it, both terms are used routinely to describe activities in orbit.

Re:Is this really fair?

[mdwh2 (535323)]

I think it's pretty clear that the OP is well aware that the spacecraft is not beyond the range of influence of the Earth's gravity (which is infinite, after all).

At the same time though, in General Relativity a gravitational field is equivalent to an accelerating frame of reference (or something like that...), so the sum total gravitational effects experienced in the spacecraft's frame of reference is near zero.

It could be argued that "zero gravity" is misleading as it will help perpetuate the common myth that weightlessness is due to being beyond the Earth's gravity, rather than it being cancelled out due to the acceleration, but nonetheless, that's a term used to refer to it, and I think it's clear that the OP wasn't misunderstanding the differences.

I'd question that labelling it as "scientifically inaccurate" constitutes POV, especially when it is backed up only by one person, who is described as a journalist and historian, not a scientist.

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[tverbeek (457094)]

In this context, the unit "G" refers to the amount of force applied to the body by the craft it's in (jet, rocket, centrifuge, roller coaster, etc), not a measure of gravitational attraction or acceleration. (Save the pendantry for topics in which you are better informed than your peers.)

Re:Is this really fair?

[martin-boundary (547041)]

Sometimes great publicity ideas can backfire. I hope they thought about attaching a dynamo and lightbulb combo to the threadmill, it's pretty dark up there in space and the worst thing would be if she tripped up and started falling continuously towards the earth....

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[timeOday (582209)]

and likely good physiological research for NASA.

Sure the astronauts have to do SOMETHING to kill time on the ISS, but I hope Nasa doesn't launch into some sappy ploy about how this is advancing science - unless it is actually true.

Jokes about taxpayer-funded oxygen aside, the US is paying about $4BN per year [wikipedia.org] for the ISS (including its share of the Shuttle). Assume (generously) that of the 3 people aboard, 2 are Americans. That works out to $3,800 per person per minute, or just slightly under $1 milli

MOM!

[bigattichouse (527527)]

Moooooommm, Sunie's hogging all the oxygen again!

Sunie, Cut it out. Don't antaonize your sister.

But, I gotta win the maaarathonn.

Well, do it quietly, dear. Your sister has experiments to conduct.

Treadmill vs road

[Liquid Len (739188)]

Yes, I know this is Slashdot. But I'm a geek and a passionate marathon runner as well...
There's a big difference between running on a treadmill and on a road (besides the boring factor): the relative wind resistance you experience when you move has a very significant impact on your speed. A rule of thumb is that you have to subtract about 1 km/h to your treadmill speed in order to have an idea on how fast you can go on the road.

Re:Not to mention...

[Lord Bitman (95493)]

moving all your mass forward/uphill vs basically just bouncing up and down. And of course, in space, you don't even have the resistance of bouncing up and down.

Re:Not to mention...

[rly2000 (779141)]

She's going to have tethers to keep her down. As a runner, I think it would be an interesting approximation of running.

While the impact against the treadmill could well be compared to gravity, I wonder whether the zero-gravity will make it harder for her heart to pump blood to her legs. I couldn't imagine running upside down.

Also, having run on the treadmill, I think a good approximation of running outside would be to set the incline to about 1.5%. Of course, that starts to disproportionately work out your quads as opposed to your hamstrings.

Re:Not to mention...

[oni (41625)]

in space, you don't even have the resistance of bouncing up and down.

I don't think that resistance is quite the right word, but I agree with you in general - what she's doing shouldn't qualify as running the marathon. The biggest problem with long-term space travel is bone loss, and NASA has already proven that just tethering a person to a treadmil and letting them exercise doesn't fix the problem. They still lose bone mass. That's all the proof I need that what she's doing isn't the same as running on earth.

Still, there is a bright side to this. This might just be the longest run on a treadmill in zero-g. And since she has run marathons on the ground, she will be in a good position to report what the differences are and maybe this will lead to better zero-g exercise equipment.

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[Mr. Underbridge (666784)]

Yes, I know this is Slashdot. But I'm a geek and a passionate marathon runner as well... There's a big difference between running on a treadmill and on a road (besides the boring factor): the relative wind resistance you experience when you move has a very significant impact on your speed. A rule of thumb is that you have to subtract about 1 km/h to your treadmill speed in order to have an idea on how fast you can go on the road.

I run as well (and cycle), and there's just no comparison. Treadmill surface

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[Dolohov (114209)]

On the other hand, running on a road lets the air current pull away the cloud of hot air and humidity that surrounds a runner. On a treadmill she'll have her own little bit of hell, with the air warmed up to body temperature and a little raincloud of sweat droplets. So it may not be harder, but I'm betting it's a lot less pleasant. (I pity the other astronauts who want to use that room...)

Re:Treadmill vs road

[Don_dumb (927108)]

Also being a runner and gymrat I have to disagree, I can run long distance fine, but simply cant stay on a treadmill for more than a few miles. There are really two reasons for this -

The first is that I (and many I know) find my actual running style is different on a treadmill than 'self-propelled'.
Second is the physcological factors - the fact that when out running, my mind has to do a certain amount of work paying attention to where I am going, the surface, other road/pavement users etc this means consiously I can 'turn-off', whereas on a treadmill I need to think about something, and even though the treadmills at my gym have TVs and they might even be showing something I am interested in, I still spend a great deal of time looking around, still in 'vigilant mode'; The fact that I *can* step off at any time, ultimately means that after 4 or 5 miles I *will* just do that, when you are 5 miles from home, you just keep going, you can stop but you still have to at least walk home -so I keep running.

The other factor that would make a treadmill marathon more difficult is the lack of crowd, people cheering on and other runners really do spur you on when things get tough.

Re:Treadmill vs road

[Quarters (18322)]

She'll already be moving close to 17500 mph. How much more of a headwind do you want her to have?

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[envelope (317893)]

I tend to run a lot faster on the treadmill than I do on the road, mostly because I'm sofa king bored that I try to hurry up as much as possible to reach my mileage goal.

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[Lumpy (12016)]

you think that's a difference. try it in zero G.

I dare you to run on a real road in Zero G. I bet you cant make it past the first step!

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[Zenaku (821866)]

Yeah -- her running the Boston one is clearly just a nice bit of publicity for the marathon and the space program. I'm sure her time will be utterly and completely unofficial.

What she SHOULD do is start her own marathon -- the 2007 Space Marathon! She'll win because she'll be the only one in it.

Obligatory: Fine! I'll start my own marathon! With blackjack! And hookers! In fact, forget the marathon and the blackjack!

I heard she really trained for this

[raddan (519638)]

In fact, she weighs next to nothing.

HAND.

That place is gonna smell...

[sycodon (149926)]

...like a locker room.

Re:

[MichaelSmith (789609)]

I am sure it already does

Patriots' Day

[by Anonymous Coward]

For the unaware, Patriots' Day commemorates the Battles of Lexington and Concord which are considered to be the first skirmishes of the American Revolution, a conflict that was actually fought be people generally considered to be patriots.

We in Massachusetts have been observing this day long before a certain President co-opted the name to add a bit of jingo to the commemoration of a certain day in September.

Tell us what we REALLY want to know!

[erroneus (253617)]

Will she be wearing diapers?!

Re:

[Corporate Troll (537873)]

Of course, how else do you think she's going to last several hours without going to the bathroom?

Have you never driven a long trip with a women in your car? *sigh*

Do I hear a rumbling at Arlington Cemetery?

[Bazman (4849)]

Can you imagine if JFK was president now? "We choose to run on the space treadmill and do the other things not because they are easy but because they are publicity stunts!".

What next? Unix hacker to run the marathan from ..

[140Mandak262Jamuna (970587)]

... the C shell?

I've got the plans for him

[yoyhed (651244)]

main.c:

#include <marathon.h>

int main() {
person *unix_hacker = &SOME_FUCKING_GUY;
run_marathon(unix_hacker);
re turn 1; //error: probably ran out of breath at mile 0.9
}

marathon.h:

void run_marathon(&runner) {
&runner = &runner + 26.2;
return;
}

Oh, the C shell. Nevermind.

Re:

[mknewman (557587)]

I want to run the Marathon from my Wii.

Taking part in the marathon

[Rogerborg (306625)]

In the same way that with a webcam, you don't need to be on-hand (or on anything else) to contribute to a bukkake.

think of the aliens!

[symes (835608)]

Seriously, what would our outer-space neighbours think if they picked that moment to swing by and pay us a visit? They're just going to scratch their heads and think we're some backwards species that powers space flight by putting funny sweaty little creatures on treadmills!

In other news...

[dour power (764750)]

NASA confirms that Rosie Ruiz [wikipedia.org] has stowed away on a Soyuz supply ship scheduled to dock with the ISS just before the end of the marathon.

I'm disappointed...

[GundamFan (848341)]

No mention of The Flash's time traveling space treadmill?

Will she overheat?

[giafly (926567)]

No gravity means no convection. No headwind means little conduction.
Will they generate an artificial headwind using a fan, or does the International Space Station have powerful air conditioning already?

Running marathon on my couch

[steelerguy (172075)]

It looks like I will be running the marathon on my couch and quit possibly in my bed also, probably won't be doing too much running either, but hey...at least I am participating in the Boston Marathon (even though I not in the correct city or state or registered or even running).

"sister marathons" in iraq

[peter303 (12292)]

Many of the popular marathons in the US have same-day events in Iraq. Sometimes the courses are pretty cramped and soldiers do many laps. Probably good for morale.

Effects of running the Boston Marathon in space...

[MS-06FZ (832329)]

Of course, you realize that since there's a runner running the Boston Marathon in space, all normal space travel routes will have to be closed, satellites will need to be stopped for several hours or directed in long, convoluted, indirect routes to their destinations - and even then possibly get "stuck" somewhere, unable to proceed until the marathon's over - and any orbiting satellites trapped by this process will be subject to ticketing by the Boston Police for parking violations.

Re:

[Dr. Eggman (932300)]

It celebrates the battles of Lexington and Concord of a certain war which you are not a patriot if you cannot name.

Re:Patriot Day?

[by Anonymous Coward]

It celebrates the battles of Lexington and Concord of a certain war which you are not a patriot if you cannot name.

I'm a patriot, and I can name it. It was the war of the treasonous, ungrateful colonists ;-)

And elsewhere...

[ciaohound (118419)]

an anonymous slashdotter will be competing in the wheelchair category from his cubicle using an Aeron chair and a piezoelectric sensor to detect lateral fidgeting while slinging Java for a large consulting outfit.