Disease May Prevent Manned Journey To Mars 177
Pickens writes "Science Daily News reports that human missions to Mars and all other long-term space flights might be compromised by disease, first because space travel appears to weaken astronauts' immune systems; and second, because it increases the virulence and growth of microbes. 'When people think of space travel, often the vast distances are what come to mind first,' says Jean-Pol Frippiat from Nancy-University in France, 'but even after we figure out a way to cover these distances in a reasonable amount of time, we still need to figure out how astronauts are going to overcome disease and sickness.' Frippiat says studies show that immune systems of both people and animals in space flight conditions are significantly weaker than their grounded counterparts and that common pathogens such as Salmonella, E. coli and Staphylococcus reproduce more rapidly in space flight conditions, leading to increased risk of contamination, colonization and serious infection."
two words... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:two words... (Score:5, Informative)
WTF? How is a first post mentioning a "diversified ecosystem" redundant? Your immune system responds better if there are constant challenges to it, which is what a diversified ecosystem does. It also tends to help keep pathogens numbers down, since even pathogens have predators/competitors in a diversified ecosystem.
Re:MiR? ISS? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:MiR? ISS? (Score:4, Informative)
That brings another problem : if you keep the environment completely pathogen free , the immunity of the people there will drop significantly , since it is not being stimulated.
So , when they come home , they will immediately get sick.
Re:Long Duration Space Flight (Score:3, Informative)
There is no microbiological difference between orbiting the Earth and going to Mars
Yes there is, ISS gets air resupply regularly!!
Use Nuclear rockets (Score:2, Informative)
A nuclear rocket would take 3 months to get to mars, 3 months back. Back in 1970, 400 M $ were missing to get the first one off the ground as a third stage of an Apollo rocket.
The theoretical useful weight for a nuclear rocket is 38% of the total that can go up in space, compared to 4% for a chemical rocket.
Nerva-2 would have developped 5000 MW and 90 tonnes of lift. Nerva-1 had already been tested on the ground. 1100 MW and 25 ton lift.
As soon as the Chinese threaten to do this, the US might be back in the race. One can always hope.
The plan in the early 1970ies was to send two of these off to Mars (for obvious redundancy purposes).
Re:rotate it (Score:3, Informative)
Instead of making the spaceship that large, they could attach the living quarters to each end of a very long cable, and then slowly rotate the ship. In the center of the cable, they could place a zero-G section which would contain sensors, and possibly the propulsion system and other equipment.
The long cable could be made out of some type of super strong light weight material, such as some type of carbon fibers.
There is also the question of how much artificial gravity would be needed to protect the astronauts health. If it is significantly less than 1 G, they could use a shorter cable or rotate the ship more slowly.
There is also the question of to what extent the astronauts bodies might possibly be able to get used to a certain amount of motion. Perhaps, they should ask sailers or fighter pilots, if their resistance to seasickness has improved, or not.