NASA's Scott Kelly Shares What He Discovered After a Year In Space (time.com) 58
Kelly, who returned to Earth after 340 days in space last year, is working on a memoir about his experience in the space since, and how he has been seeing the planet since. Two excerpts from his article on Time: The mission that I prepared for was, for the most part, the mission I flew. The data is still being analyzed, but the scientists are excited about what they are seeing so far. The genetic differences that appeared between my twin brother Mark and me could unlock new knowledge, not only about what spaceflight does to our bodies but also about how we age here on Earth. Emerging results reveal the condition of my telomeres -- the ends of our chromosomes that indicate our genetic age -- actually improved while I was in space compared to Mark's, contrary to expectations. The studies I worked on show promise in helping scientists reach solutions to health problems that emerge in long-duration spaceflight -- problems such as bone loss, muscle deterioration, damage to vision and the effects of extended radiation exposure. [...] Personally, I've learned that nothing feels as amazing as water. The night my plane landed in Houston and I finally got to go home, I did exactly what I'd been saying all along I would do: I walked in the front door, walked out the back door and jumped into the swimming pool, still in my flight suit. I'll never take water for granted again. Russian cosmonaut Misha Kornienko says he feels the same way. I've learned that showing up early, whether it's to a job interview or a spacewalk, is the only way to stay ahead of the game and be successful. "If you're not five minutes early, you're already late."
Centrifuge (Score:2)
Seems to me that any long term solution for space travel or space occupation should just involve a centrifuge as living quarters.
Heavy? Yes.
Expensive? Yes.
But if man can't live in space without getting totally fucked up, then I guess that's a small price to pay.
Re:Human health (Score:1)
"After a Year In Space" (Score:2)
Sigh. 11 months (340 days is a hell of a lot closer to that than it is to 12 months) is in no way shape or form "one year".
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--
#MercurianLivesMatter
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Yes, on the space station it is one year. It has to do with relativity.
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Yes, on the space station it is one year. It has to do with relativity.
Oh my goodness... Relativity would add ~ 0.001 second for that duration on the IIS.
That is a problem for GPS satellites but it is not an entire month of the year.
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Ummm... Doesn't added speed slow time down? (It's always been my primary reason for speeding ;^)
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Re:"After a Year In Space" (Score:4)
*sigh* autistic pedantic slashdotter can't understand speaking in round numbers
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At what deviation from exactitude does "round" become "wrong"?
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you tell me, but 0.93 years is about a year
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But it's much closer to 11 months.
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doesn't matter, 11 months is about a year too
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(The article didn't say, "about a year". It said "a year".)
At what point does "X months" shift from "about a year" to "not about a year?
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(The article didn't say, "about a year". It said "a year".)
At what point does "X months" shift from "about a year" to "not about a year?
If you start with a pile of sand and take away one grain at a time, at what point does it shift from being a pile of sand to being a few loose grains of sand?
Also, grasshopper, what is the sound of one hand clapping?
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Answering a question with a question can be insightful, but in your case it's not.
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you tell me, but 0.93 years is about a year
It's an imperial year.
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How many years did he spend in space? Go on. Round it.
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You answer my question, then I'll answer yours.
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Your argument will become valid when someone sells you a year long trip to space.
In the mean time it's a frikin article on a frikin free website, so an approximation for convenience is perfectly reasonable.
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Sigh. 11 months (340 days is a hell of a lot closer to that than it is to 12 months) is in no way shape or form "one year".
It's 0.9315 years. How many significant digits do you want on that?
(Actually given that his year in space included February 29, it might be more accurate to say it was 0.92896 years.
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This has nothing to do with significant digits.
Anyway... 11 months is 0.91667 years, and that's a hell of a lot closer to 0.9315 years than it is to 1.0 years.
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Step outside of the pedantic bubble and experience causal conversation.
In his defense, that's hard for nearly all of us here, myself included!
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This has nothing to do with significant digits.
Anyway... 11 months is 0.91667 years, and that's a hell of a lot closer to 0.9315 years than it is to 1.0 years.
Insignificant digits......
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Imagine if there was a .08333 error somewhere in the re-entry calculations that we were talking about. Or if their salary was underpaid that much.
Imagine you got 91 on an exam...it's still an A in the vast majority of schools. You need to learn the difference between what matters in casual discussion and astrophysics...it doesn't require five-nines or a six sigma effort.
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This has nothing to do with significant digits.
Anyway... 11 months is 0.91667 years, and that's a hell of a lot closer to 0.9315 years than it is to 1.0 years.
Tut tut, you've got four different significant digits in each of your four numbers. How can you live with yourself?
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Quite easily.
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Sigh. 11 months (340 days is a hell of a lot closer to that than it is to 12 months) is in no way shape or form "one year".
It's 0.9315 years. How many significant digits do you want on that?
(Actually given that his year in space included February 29, it might be more accurate to say it was 0.92896 years.
Are yu counting the leap second we added last year? Its apparently really important to some people.
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340 days is a lot closer to one year than 0 years.
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Well then we should have had the mission at 190 days since it rounds up to 1 year and saved a bunch of money on the experiment. Close enough right?
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but Kelly was 0.07 years short of one year
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After a [minute, hour, day, week, month, year, decade] in space.
Which is closest to 340 days?
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Sigh. 11 months (340 days is a hell of a lot closer to that than it is to 12 months) is in no way shape or form "one year".
Thanks - we didn't know that.
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Early, late, whatever (Score:2)
Or, show up five minutes early for a meeting, and get kvetched at for spending time in the conference room that you could have been working. You can't win.
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Quit that job. Fin.
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Quit that job. Fin.
I'm pretty sure that my meetings bear little semblance to astronaut meetings. For some careers it makes sense that showing up early will help with success. For example, students, sales people, astronauts, etc. Anything where it helps you get into the right frame of mind, gets noticed by your manager, or aids you in getting that sale.
However, my meetings tend to be about IT projects, are scheduled on top of each other, have varying priorities, etc. Very few, if any, would lead to an increase in success b
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Yeah, IT meetings are about sharing information, maybe receiving direction from higher up the chain.
It's kind of a shame they're treated like any other meeting, because if you could appear when the agenda has an item that might involve you and then step out afterwards (assuming those items cluster well...), a lot fewer people would be sitting there bored out of their minds instead of possibly being productive back at their desks.
The manager is the only one who needs to be there end-to-end, because they're t
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Ummm... no? Showing up to meetings early for no specific reason is silly. There are a few ways to look at it but at the end of the day I do agree you should arrive precisely when you *mean* to. Sometimes that is 15 minutes early, sometimes it is on time, sometimes it is late. As long as you have a specific reason to be at the meeting early rather than doing *anything* else that could be more productive. Sitting in an empty room for 5 minutes for no reason doesn't help anyone.
If you have a reason to show
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This.
If you're making others wait, or repeat themselves, by showing up 15 mins late to meetings, then you're just being rude. It's not the same as being sociably late to a party.
I run a lot of meetings, and am known for starting them on time. People used to show up late, but quickly learned that I wasn't about to repeat covered topics for their convenience. If key folks don't show up on time, I reschedule.
Questions (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's ask him to do a Slashdot Ask Me A Question!
less gravity = less thoughts = less aging (Score:1)
There's not much water on mars (Score:2)
Genetic Age. (Score:2)
telomeres -- the ends of our chromosomes that indicate our genetic age
Huh. I knew all that. But then it hit me. After a certain point we should really start talking about people's genetic age as a decreasing value of their telomeres' lengths. Probably an average? Or the minimum? Not all your cells divide at the same rate for sure.
People will go into the negative numbers. When they run out of telomeres and start losing genetic code each division.
It'll show 40 year old people that have a genetic age of T -10 years and 60 year old people that have a genetic age of T -20 years.
BTDT (Score:4, Funny)
So, it took him a year in space to learn about water, and family, and much else... that I learned in ninety days on my first SSBN patrol.
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