British Astronaut Competes in London Marathon from ISS (cnn.com) 61
An anonymous reader writes:
"British astronaut Tim Peake became the first man to complete a marathon in space on Sunday, running the classic 26.2 mile distance while strapped to a treadmill aboard the International Space Station..." reports Reuters. "The 44-year-old spaceman saw London's roads under his feet in real time on an iPad as, 250 miles below him, more than 37,000 runners simultaneously pounded the streets."
Meanwhile, in a show of solidarity, two earth-bound runners ran the marathon wearing space suits.
CNN notes that Peake "ran the race for real in 1999," but this time competed with avatars that represented actual runners who were using the Run Social app. His zero-gravity run took longer -- more than three and a half hours -- while a Kenyan runner ultimately won the race, completing the whole 26.2-mile course in just two hours, three minutes and four seconds, the second-fastest time ever recorded.
CNN notes that Peake "ran the race for real in 1999," but this time competed with avatars that represented actual runners who were using the Run Social app. His zero-gravity run took longer -- more than three and a half hours -- while a Kenyan runner ultimately won the race, completing the whole 26.2-mile course in just two hours, three minutes and four seconds, the second-fastest time ever recorded.
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+1 Funny.
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Re:Shark (Score:4, Interesting)
Now, what's being overlooked, of course, is the scientific merit of such a feat. This is one of those cases where we have an opportunity to gather data at very little additional cost, and it may reveal new insight that may assist future work.
If we ever do leave Earth for a significant length of time, running on a treadmill is one of the often-proposed mechanisms for maintaining muscle during the long trip, and possibly for the long stay at an extraterrestrial outpost. Unfortunately, we haven't really had much success with treadmills so far. Even with rigorous exercise, astronauts have typically lost up to 0.4-1% of their bone density per month in space [asc-csa.gc.ca], and when we're talking about trips of several years, that's a significant health hazard. This run provides a rare insight: what if the astronauts do more than just "rigorous exercise"? What if they routinely do what would be extreme on Earth?
During the run, Peake's body was monitored, and of course routine measurements will continue. This may provide a promising avenue for future research, or it may not. It may indicate against future research in this direction. Either way, the expense to do it now is only a few hours of time, rather than the millions or billions of dollars to run a specialized experiment.
Don't think of it as spending money to run a marathon in a spectacular war. We already spent the money to put people in space, and now we're getting every bit of data we can for that money.
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Travelled 61.490 miles relative to what? Pick you frame of reference appropriately and you can assign arbitrary movement to any object (subject to relativistic constraints).
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Wrong. The ISS is continuously falling along the horizon - that is something called "orbit".
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What do you think is "wrong"?
Of course it's in orbit, but that's not relevant to how far he's travelled relative to the treadmill surface.
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The frame of reference that he launched from and that we live on (the surface of the Earth directly below where we stand) is probably a pretty good one, I would think.
You don't have cops pulling people over and saying, "Do you realize how fast you were driving relative to Sagittarius A*?"
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... but it's not terribly relevant to running on a treadmill. If you're running on a treadmill, then the only frame that really counts is the surface of the treadmill.
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He's cheating because thanks to relativity, he has more time to run the marathon up in ISS than we do have here on earth.
Welcome astronaut! (Score:2)
I've been part of the "couch contingent" of the marathon for a couple of years now. A lot of people don't know this but I've played in the Super Bowl several times as well. And I don't mean just watching it on the television. I am in my living room playing right along with the other players. It really is a team effort.
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Buddy, I need to talk to you about maybe doing a little point-shaving in the next Super Bowl. There's money to be made.
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You must be one a them "Ethno-Nationalists".
That's not a spacesuit (Score:2)
While it would be quite a feat to run a marathon in spacesuits, those are just white dresses with a spacesuit painted on them.
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There is a record for a 1 mile run in a bomb suit, though.
Army Times Story [armytimes.com]
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It only puts the body under huge stress if you're not used to running long distances or you're trying to go way faster than you are realistically able to.
Peake ran the marathon before without issues and presumably does a lot of running on the treadmill, so unless he was going for a record time, which he obviously wasn't, it's no more risky than any other repetitive physical activity.
Re: Risky (Score:3)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/scie... [bbc.co.uk]
Not even true (Score:1)
Ooooops! (Score:2)
When I first saw the headline, I thought he was running from ISIS.