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Breakdown Forces New Look At Mars Mission Sexuality
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Feb 09, 2007 10:56 AM
from the acting-like-adults-at-nasa dept.
from the acting-like-adults-at-nasa dept.
FloatsomNJetsom writes "Popular Mechanics has up an interesting story, discussing what the long-term implications of the Lisa Nowak incident could mean for Mars Mission crew decisions: With a 30-month roundtrip, that isn't the sort of thing you'd want to happen in space. Scientists have been warning about the problems of sex on long-term spaceflight, and experts are divided as to whether you want a crew of older married couples, or asexual unitard-wearing eunuchs. The point the article makes specifically is that NASA's current archetype of highly-driven, task-oriented people might be precisely the wrong type for a Mars expedition. In addition scientists may use genomics or even functional MRI in screening astronauts, in addition to facial-recognition computers to monitor mental health during the mission." Maybe observers could just deploy the brain scanner to keep track of them?
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*Chuckle* (Score:5, Funny)
Re:*Chuckle* (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Monitoring them will not work (Score:5, Interesting)
Just because you monitor them does not give you the capability to fix things if things go bad on Mars.
Of course, you can send groups of people on long journeys. Just take a look at the classic journeys of exploration, where people were at sea, out of site of land, often for many months at a time.
But they had a solution to certain problems that you can't have in a space ship. You can't put discontents on an island in the fashion of Robinson Cruscoe, or set them adrift in a boat like Captain Bligh was.
You need to have a practical body of techniques as a solution to resolving human issues that does not require much in terms of medications. You can run out of medications. You need to be able to debug the mind.
Parent
Submariners (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Submariners (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Submariners (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Submariners (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Submariners (Score:5, Insightful)
Well that's nice speculation.... but wrong. This should have been modded interesting, not informative.
The nuclear missile submarines do 3 months straight submerged -- every single patrol (my personal longest was 87 days) -- and many submarines have done extended tours, though admittedly usually for PR reasons, like the early Nautilus cruises.
In any case, the original suggestion took the words right our of my mouth. We submariners are the closest to representing people with an appropriate personality type for an extended mission in cramped quarters. NASA should definitely do extended observations and psych evaluations of sub crews on patrols and such.
-chris
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Re:Submariners (Score:5, Interesting)
My personal record was 59 days at sea on a SSN, surfacing twice to evacuate personnel for medical reasons. Had we not had these reasons, we would have been under for the whole 59 days.
Now, what you mean by "outside of human contact" changes the answer completely. Did the SSBNs still get regular radio dispatches (or maybe yo can't say
Parent
Spaceballs (Score:5, Insightful)
All of it on camera, especially the long seasons spent in zero-g. The syndication rights could fund the entire mission, and the subsequent colonization.
Simple (Score:5, Funny)
There are sexy missionaries on Mars? (Score:5, Funny)
"Rum, sodomy, and the lash" (Score:5, Insightful)
Can even science effectively moderate and control the human sexual urge? The Royal Navy of days gone by turned a blind eye to most of it, so I gather from unreliable sources I may have read. I believe the words in my subject here are attributed to the answer Winston Churchill gave when asked what made the Royal Navy of old so strong.
Jeez, I can't imagine finding many of my colleagues alluring even after spending 6 months trapped in a submarine with them!
Your sources are unreliable (Score:5, Informative)
If Churchill ever said that, he was joking.
Parent
polar opposite (Score:5, Funny)
Ensuring 30 months with no sex? (Score:5, Funny)
Strange difference (Score:5, Insightful)
Help, not screen (Score:5, Insightful)
NASA's problem is that they're stuck in the old model of "we want to find the VERY BEST candidate" and a "process of elimination." Many corporations long ago realized that you look for good people you can refine to be the best and you keep them. NASA's like an employer that shows a brilliant stock trader the door after an interview because he's a horrendous dresser, instead of hiring him and his supervisor taking him to a tailor some evening.
Guess what? We're all full of faults, and even after decades of refining their screening technique, they didn't detect that this woman could have serious mental issues.
Would You Seek Help If It Meant You'd Never Fly On the Shuttle [sciam.com] covers the matter better than I could, but basically: NASA's reaction to this is more intense screening, when it should be to recognize the commitment made on both sides and help them resolve their personal problems.
My employer has an entire department dedicated to helping employees with "life" problems. It's anonymous; your supervisor or coworkers never find out you even talked to them. Why? Because it's better to have someone for you to talk to and try and help you with little problems, before they become problems that interfere with your work. Had NASA had a similar program, chances are the astronaut in question would have received the mental help/counselling she needed.
Instead, NASA lost a great astronaut and her life has been destroyed.
Re:Help, not screen (Score:5, Interesting)
Her life has been destroyed and several families. The court system isn't fun for anyone....the victim, the criminal, their families. I feel for the kids. It is going to be rough for them with so many changes all at once.
I lost both of my parents. My mother is guilty (murder of her cheating boy friend) and I believe my dad to be innocent since there is no physical evidence & no witnesses (molestation of a 3 year old).
Needless to say discussing my family is not something I usually do and Nowak's kids are going to have a hard time...I mean they are in school right now...imagine being a teenager with your mother on the news for attempted murder nightly! I can't even imagine discussing adult diapers with teenagers!
Parent
Who needs "Astonauts"? (Score:5, Insightful)
NASA's current astronaut office is viewed by many as wrong for just about every mission.
First off their are way to many astronauts. There are over 100, they spend their lives in pursuit of this one goal, and even if they get in to the office they may never fly, or if they do, most fly once. The approaching end of life of the Shuttle is further aggravating a bad situation. Unless you are already scheduled for one of the remaining missions chances are your space faring career is over, unless you are young enough to last the decade until the Moon ramps up if it ever does.
Today's astronauts come across as a politically correct bunch of over achievers with some screws loose in general. These people have to be somewhat nuts to jump through all the hoops they have to jump through, to spend the prime of their lives chasing a one week flight on the Shuttle, and spend years trapped in the horrible NASA bureaucracy as the price they pay.
The best solution we could get is to make space flight really routine, and relagate the current astronaut corp to pilots where they belong. Everyone else should be specialists and experts in the fields you need to colonize the Moon or Mars, with a heavy emphasis on handymen who can repair stuff when it breaks with limited resources, green thumbs who can keep people fed, geologists who can find and tap raw materials, etc.
It would be nice if people could routinely travel in space without being a fracking Astronaut/Cosmonaut in the first place.
As for dealing with the sex issue.... good luck. Its nearly impossible to prevent people losing it one way or another over sex. It is one of those areas where our primal instincts still exist, and are nearly impossible to completely suppress or control.
The diaper lady was not about sex... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Movie deal (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Robert Heinlein? (Score:5, Informative)
Isn't this how "Stranger in a Strange Land" started out? A trip to mars with infidelity and murder?
Parent
Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Funny)
I think you just solved NASA's chronic funding shortages! Brilllliant!
Parent