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Space Medicine NASA Science Games

Lord British To Conduct Experiments On ISS 60

Posted by timothy from the hear-he-throws-a-good-castle-party dept.
CR0WTR0B0T writes "Richard Garriott, AKA Lord British, will be part of three experiments on the International Space Station. 'Garriott has a ticket to the space station because he is an orbital spaceflight client of Space Adventures, the only company that provides commercial human space missions ... Garriott will be the first person in space who has had photorefractive keratectomy eye surgery. NASA has approved the PRK procedure for astronauts but has not yet been able to test its effects. Garriott will help scientists figure out if visual acuity of a PRK patient changes in orbit as inner eye pressure increases by up to 50% during space flights.' Mostly, NASA wants to know if he can heal himself or provide resurrection to the other astronauts in case the experiments goes awry."
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Lord British To Conduct Experiments On ISS More

Lord British To Conduct Experiments On ISS

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  • Real /.ers wanna know! (Score:3, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @09:39AM (#25286143) Homepage Journal

    Mostly, NASA wants to know if he can heal himself or provide resurrection to the other astronauts in case the experiments goes awry.

    Damn you for not providing more information! How can he provide resurrection in space: the d20s will float away! Will they provide slighty magnetized dice and a ferrous gameboard? Velcro-covered dice and playing field? Dice in a centrifuge?

    Tell us more!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fbjon ( 692006 )
      Resurrection in space is easy, all he needs is a throne and a jester who constantly gets in the way.

    • He'll just need to cast a TYM POR to prevent anything bad from happening in the first place!

    • Re:Real /.ers wanna know! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Chris Burke ( 6130 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @11:48AM (#25288313) Homepage

      Damn you for not providing more information! How can he provide resurrection in space: the d20s will float away! Will they provide slighty magnetized dice and a ferrous gameboard? Velcro-covered dice and playing field? Dice in a centrifuge?

      He doesn't need dice. He just needs blood moss, garlic, and ginseng.

    • Tell us more!

      He doesn't NEED d20s...

      He can jus' say to Iolo, "Spam Spam Spam Humbug" and edit their health directly. ;)

      • U6 has one of the best conversation systems I've ever seen in a game. It's all HTMLified, but it doesn't feel like you're forced into choosing one of three/four options like successive RPGs require.

        Name Job Bye

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by wizzy403 ( 303479 )

      For thee 50 GP tribute, I raise thee 300!

      Just don't let him try to fly the shuttle to coordinates 6,6,6 to try and get his ring back!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by yanyan ( 302849 )

      What the articles don't tell you is that Sherry will be coming along for the trip, making her the first talking mouse in space. :-)

      I also do hope Lord British brings enough ginseng, mandrake root, and spidersilk.

  • Rainz (Score:4, Funny)

    by PhrostyMcByte ( 589271 ) <phrosty@gmail.com> on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @09:44AM (#25286205) Homepage
    Ever since that day, British has been scarred, forever trying to get as far away from Rainz as possible.

  • I suspect it will go as follows... (Score:5, Funny)

    by getclear ( 1338437 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @09:54AM (#25286355)
    Well, I beleive he will cast a Greater Heal, chanting "In Vas Mani", poke his eye, followed by the heal sound. At that point, he will most likely turn to the rest of the people on the ISS and PK them. They are most likely dexers, so he will have to make sure to keep Reflective Armor up, and just pick his combos well. Do you think he will look for the Star Room and mark a rune so he doesn't have to screw with flying there, and just recall back next time? *shrugs* Not sure. Can you mark in the ISS?

    • He'll just keep chanting "Vendor buy the banks some guards". Shout out to all my old Chesapeake crew, from DogMeat [MoO] Mayor of Oberon Pass
       
      Jonah HEX

    • As long as he doesn't try "In Vas Flam". I think that could be bad. If he eats some really bad nachos before launch he could always try "In Nox". Damnit, now I feel like a complete nerd (as opposed to a half-ass nerd).

  • Go Lord British (Score:3, Funny)

    by Chris Pimlott ( 16212 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @09:57AM (#25286393)

    When asked why he wanted to go into space, Richard explained he wanted to "experience more!"

    Most critics, however, doubt he will be able to destroy 20 enemy vessels in a single mission.

  • 8x8 (Score:2, Funny)

    by VoxMagis ( 1036530 )

    This is just a desperate attempt by Lord British to 8x8 his way to full Magic Resist.

    • Hmm, 8x8 is an X-Y axis thing. Can you 8x8 on a Z axis upwards into space? I guess we will find out. Hmm, think Garriot will post it to AskChopper?
  • ISS Vision Testing Procedure:

    "Can you see me now? Good!"
  • I think it would be more interesting to see Don Shamino try some zero-gee rapier combat. Pity he can't take Don Tivar up with him.

  • Wow! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by east coast ( 590680 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @10:19AM (#25286803)
    I remember wanting to be Lord British when I was in my early teens... Now I want to be him again.

    This guy leads a pretty charmed life, IMHO.

  • Early Ultima (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TheLink ( 130905 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @10:26AM (#25286929) Journal
    When I hear Lord British and Space, it reminds me of the earlier Ultima games...

    Man I'm old...

    Soon you'll be old just because you know who Lord British is :).

  • Should be fine... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Avatar8 ( 748465 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @10:44AM (#25287249)
    ...as long as EA doesn't assimilate NASA, shift non-NASA developers onto the ISS project, drastically increase the production cycle, overwork the astronauts and launch the shuttle way before it's ready. You can't patch in space.

    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You can't patch in space.

      Um, yes, http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/rtf/tps/repairapp.pdf [nasa.gov] yes you can. (PDF)

    • * We'd still be playing Madden '76.

      * 2% of players would die.

      * I'd have to read a Slashdot article every three days about them. ("Yesterday, a NASA mission was a stunning success, succeeding in passing a ball from one player to the same player's other hand. This pathbreaking research suggests a future in which it is possible to conceive of players possibly passing the ball to each other. Someday. The mission was a bargain at $325 million and accomplished in a record-breaking 18 months, improvements over

  • PRK (Score:3, Informative)

    by Amazing Quantum Man ( 458715 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @11:22AM (#25287859) Homepage

    Hurts like a bitch for a week, and takes about 2 weeks for your vision to clear, but works great for those of us who are, for some reason or another, bad candidates for LASIK.

    I wish I'd done it sooner.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by blincoln ( 592401 )

      works great for those of us who are, for some reason or another, bad candidates for LASIK.

      It's also supposed to be more durable - a number of US military branches will disqualify candidates who've had LASIK, but allow those who've had PRK.

      Have you noticed any side-effects, like reduced low-light vision? That's probably my biggest concern, since I see very well in low light and would miss it.

      I'll probably still wait until I can get replacement eyes if someone screws up, but I'm curious anyway.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Amazing Quantum Man ( 458715 )

        No, I haven't noticed any bad side effect, other than needing reading glasses, and that's due to age.

        I'm 45, and because I was *SO* nearsighted, my near vision was actually pretty decent, but because of my age,
        I now need reading glasses. If I was younger, I suspect I wouldn't need them.

        The myopia canceled out the age-related presbyopia.

        As a side note, I suffered from chronic erosions, and this seems to have cured it as well.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Sibko ( 1036168 )

      What are the advantages and disadvantages of the two procedures?

      LASIK Advantages:
      * Quick healing (driving vision the next day in most cases)
      * Little chance of haze
      * Re-treatments are easier

      Disadvantages:
      * Uses more tissue
      * Can have flap complications (rare occurrence in good hands)

      PRK Advantages:
      * Uses less tissue
      * No flap created so no chance of flap complication

      Disadvantages:
      * Healing takes longer than LASIK (driving vision in 4 to 14 days)
      * Slight risk of haze (little risk with modern laser and adjunctive chemical therapy)
      * Delayed epithelial healing

      We do approximately 30% of our patients with PRK and find that the end result of the two procedures to be excellent.

      This is from the FAQ of the guys who did my eye surgery. [I had PRK done, since I'm going in the army.] http://www.seewell.ca/index.html [seewell.ca]

      • These guys [oaveyes.com] did mine. He's my regular opthamologist, so that was a plus. He also did a lot of the clinical trials, and was a pioneer in the treatment of astigmatism with PRK as well, so double plus.

        Delayed epithelial healing

        Yeah, that's what hurts like hell. They essentially strip off the entire epithelium so that they can shape the outside of the cornea. Essentially, it give you the mother of all corneal erosions [wikipedia.org].

        The beauty of it is that PRK is essentially the same as PTK, which is the treatment of choi

  • I hope this ends well... (Score:4, Funny)

    by snarfies ( 115214 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @11:43AM (#25288243) Homepage

    If there's a gold plaque installed over any doorways in the ISS, he's DOOMED!

  • Day 1:

    I put on my robe and wizard hat...

    *sigh* Byebye karma. Time to play Ultima until this blows over!

  • Basically, he'll be reading an eyechart? Man, that's some cutting edge science. Perhaps he can also read a book, or try to see something in the distance.

  • Forget the Eye Surgery tests.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Khyber ( 864651 ) <techkitsune@gmail.com> on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @01:56PM (#25290307) Homepage Journal

    See if he can use An Nox to cure space sickness and the inevitable food poisoning!

    Asteroid impact coming? Grav Por, baby!

    Lights go out on the ISS? Vas Lor FTW!

  • He might exit the station without landing or even worse, use the skull.

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