Astronaut Scott Kelly Describes One Year In Space -- And Its After Effects (brisbanetimes.com.au) 200
53-year-old astronaut Scott Kelly shared a dramatic excerpt from his new book Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery in the Brisbane Times, describing his first 48 hours back on earth and what he'd learned on the mission:
I push back from the table and struggle to stand up, feeling like a very old man getting out of a recliner... I make it to my bedroom without incident and close the door behind me. Every part of my body hurts. All my joints and all of my muscles are protesting the crushing pressure of gravity. I'm also nauseated, though I haven't thrown up... When I'm finally vertical, the pain in my legs is awful, and on top of that pain I feel a sensation that's even more alarming: it feels as though all the blood in my body is rushing to my legs, like the sensation of the blood rushing to your head when you do a handstand, but in reverse. I can feel the tissue in my legs swelling... Normally if I woke up feeling like this, I would go to the emergency room. But no one at the hospital will have seen symptoms of having been in space for a year...
Our space agencies won't be able to push out farther into space, to a destination like Mars, until we can learn more about how to strengthen the weakest links in the chain that make space flight possible: the human body and mind... [V]ery little is known about what occurs after month six. The symptoms may get precipitously worse in the ninth month, for instance, or they may level off. We don't know, and there is only one way to find out... On my previous flight to the space station, a mission of 159 days, I lost bone mass, my muscles atrophied, and my blood redistributed itself in my body, which strained and shrank the walls of my heart. More troubling, I experienced problems with my vision, as many other astronauts had. I had been exposed to more than 30 times the radiation of a person on Earth, equivalent to about 10 chest X-rays every day. This exposure would increase my risk of a fatal cancer for the rest of my life.
Kelly says the Space Station crew performed more than 400 experiments, though about 25% of his time went to tracking his own health. "If we could learn how to counteract the devastating impact of bone loss in microgravity, the solutions could well be applied to osteoporosis and other bone diseases. If we could learn how to keep our hearts healthy in space, that knowledge could be useful on Earth." Kelly says he felt better a few months after returning to earth, adding "It's gratifying to see how curious people are about my mission, how much children instinctively feel the excitement and wonder of space flight, and how many people think, as I do, that Mars is the next step... I know now that if we decide to do it, we can."
Our space agencies won't be able to push out farther into space, to a destination like Mars, until we can learn more about how to strengthen the weakest links in the chain that make space flight possible: the human body and mind... [V]ery little is known about what occurs after month six. The symptoms may get precipitously worse in the ninth month, for instance, or they may level off. We don't know, and there is only one way to find out... On my previous flight to the space station, a mission of 159 days, I lost bone mass, my muscles atrophied, and my blood redistributed itself in my body, which strained and shrank the walls of my heart. More troubling, I experienced problems with my vision, as many other astronauts had. I had been exposed to more than 30 times the radiation of a person on Earth, equivalent to about 10 chest X-rays every day. This exposure would increase my risk of a fatal cancer for the rest of my life.
Kelly says the Space Station crew performed more than 400 experiments, though about 25% of his time went to tracking his own health. "If we could learn how to counteract the devastating impact of bone loss in microgravity, the solutions could well be applied to osteoporosis and other bone diseases. If we could learn how to keep our hearts healthy in space, that knowledge could be useful on Earth." Kelly says he felt better a few months after returning to earth, adding "It's gratifying to see how curious people are about my mission, how much children instinctively feel the excitement and wonder of space flight, and how many people think, as I do, that Mars is the next step... I know now that if we decide to do it, we can."
"Mars is the next step" (Score:2)
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Also this,
Stop sending senior citizens into space.
Wtf right?
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Shouldn't it be more like "Help! I've fallen and I can't stop floating!"
Mars has gravity -- at an acceleration rate of 3.711 meters per second squared, compare that to 9.8 m/s squared on Earth. So you will still fall down on Mars. Thanks for playing, though.
This issue is Real (Score:3)
Re:This issue is Real (Score:4, Informative)
A couple of Nat Geo issues ago there was an article where a scientist said, due to lower gravity on Mars, we would become taller with more thin arms and legs, after only a couple of generations (maybe a single one if born there). Due to the lower gravity.
It would seem someone BORN on Earth would probably suffer health problems on Mars (given what zero gravity does, it isn't hard to conclude that lower gravity would cause issues), it would be interesting to see someone BORN on Mars grow up though.
Nat Geo's website sucks, I couldn't find the relevant info (my goodness, it's all about the TV channel). It was interesting.
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Screw that. I want to be born on Jupiter. I'll come to earth as a super human.
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An immensely strong super human, three feet high.
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Oh, c'mon--- if you want to go, just ask.
It's after effects? (Score:5, Interesting)
Spin the damn thing (Score:2, Insightful)
Not hard to produce gravity. And you can still have a weightless bit in the middle for fun.
That said, astronauts are obsolete technology. Robots can do it cheaper and better.
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This has been known forever, but is hideously expensive and complex as compared to a non-spinning solution.
Take two ISS modules, put them on a tether and spin, what could be cheaper? Nothing... until you have an operational snafu that destroys the whole thing.
Failure in space is not considered an option, anymore.
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You have to (a) make it very big; (b) make it very light so you can accelerate it to your destination with an achievable amount of propulsion; and (c) make that great big, slender structure strong enough to take the acceleration. It can be done -- with great gobs of money.
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The cost of getting that weight into space is dropping like a rock current though heh...
Another thing I haven't seen mentioned is that one effect that would be quite noticable is the pull would be stronge
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If you're not failing, you're not innovating enough - Elon Musk.
I thought Alan Kay said that (or something like that)?
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Spinning a disk doesn't generate gravity. Who is to say the centrifugal force has the same effect as real gravity?
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Spinning a disk doesn't generate gravity. Who is to say the centrifugal force has the same effect as real gravity?
sigh, physics says, that's who
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No they don't. It makes centrifugal forces which in many ways simulate gravity. That's nothing even approaching the claim that it has the same effects on living animals as gravity.
General relativity says it has. So unless you've obsoleted Einstein, it's a safe bet that it works.
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"deflect a lot of it with an electromagnet"
That'd be a pretty powerful electromagnet, yes? And then you have to deal with the effects on the various power and electronics systems. Electromagnets have been known to induce current in wiring.
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> That said, astronauts are obsolete technology. Robots can do it cheaper and better.
Isn't latency a problem for many things? Sure if you can program the robot to do everything it won't matter too much. And semi autonomous robots could do many things. But if you need human decision, then you need about 3 minutes for any sensing data to reach earth and then 3 minutes for even an immediate reaction to get back to mars.
Or am I missing something?
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Modern robots can make the easy decisions themselves. And the more difficult ones can tolerate a 3 minute delay.
So Curiosity on Mars can avoid simple obstacles by itself. And take samples etc. The controllers tell it where to go, generally, and what type of sample to take. If Curiosity gets confused, it just stops and asks. But in practice I do not think it spends much time waiting for comms delays.
A year in space (Score:2, Funny)
increased risk of a fatal cancer for the rest of your life...
versus
not having to listen to the moron in chief nor hear about his twitter shit posts for a year
sign me up
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They've got Twitter up on the ISS.
Re: A year in space (Score:2, Funny)
But in space, no one can hear you scream.
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especially if you have no mouth
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increased risk of a fatal cancer for the rest of your life...
versus
not having to listen to the moron in chief nor hear about his twitter shit posts for a year
sign me up
There's no such escape -- the ISS has around a 3mbit/10mbit (upstream is faster than downstream) internet connection. Faster than many American home internet connections, though those in other countries may find it to be limiting.
Re: A year in space (Score:3)
Pah, I laugh at their 3-10mbit connection. I had a 9.6k modem that was a million times faster than that over 25 years ago!
Maybe we need to pay attention of SCI-FI solutions (Score:1)
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It's purely an issue of cost. To produce rotational artificial gravity, you need a fairly large lever arm (otherwise the gravitational gradient is rather large, which means your head feels less gravity than your feet and... well, I'm not sure what the effects of that would be, but I can't imagine it would feel pleasant), which means you need a ship far large than you can launch into space in one go. You could build/assemble it in space, but that's difficult and expensive. Finally, you can't add something li
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Not just cost, but also operational complexity / opportunity for failure.
If you make two "gravipods" and tether them, theoretically they can spin and achieve whatever force you want on the occupants - longer tethers mean lower RPMs for the same force, but no matter how you configure it the whole thing has to be stronger to withstand the forces, and docking with something spinning like that isn't nearly as easy as 2001 made it look.
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I don't know why but this quote always stuck with me...
Why Not Contrifugal Force?? (Score:1)
I just keep wonder why NASA has this fixation on trying to do space in weightlessness? Why not use centrifugal force to simulate gravity... Why not use plants and other natural processes for breathable air and self-sustenance?
I believe the answer lies in that it's scientists, and not engineers, setting the agendas. Scientists are trained to be scepticle. They ask what is and isn't. Engineers focus on solving problems. They ask how it can be done, not if. Scientists are seeking tests to publish article
Re:Why Not Contrifugal Force?? (Score:4, Funny)
Actually scientists would love artificial gravity as it would solve all sorts of problems for them. What's preventing this from happening is that the engineers haven't been able to come up with a practical, economic way to create a centrifugal module.
But maybe that's just because they haven't consulted you yet. You should contact NASA and let them know you have the answers.
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not true, solution is easy, solved decades ago. You have giant hollow ring and spin it. NASA knows this too. It's a money problem.
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The practical problem isn't one of designing or building a centrifugal mo
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I just keep wonder why NASA has this fixation on trying to do space in weightlessness? Why not use centrifugal force to simulate gravity...
Because the ISS is specifically for gaining experience with the effects of zero-G, of course. We need to know whether all astronauts suffer the effects described here after long periods, or some subset. We need to know what durations are required for which effects to show up. It's science.
And the effects Kelly describes are for the most part adaptations to microgravity. When you first go into zero-G your blood rushes to your head because your vascular system has spent a lifetime squeezing it out of your leg
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Good idea, now how many plants have you successfully grown in space? How many will you need for a contained biosphere?
Good questions. Here's some more, vis à vis gravity:
How much gravity does a person need? Can we get away with 1/2 G? 1/4 G? 1/8 G? Do they have to live in it or can they visit it? Could they sleep for 8 hours in 1 G and be able to work/live for 16 hours in 0 G with no ill effects? How about the opposite?
These are all great questions. And what I wonder is why don't we have any answers to these questions?
According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], 536 people have been "in space" and we "have spent over 29,000 pers
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Forget astronauts. How about we experiment on mice or something? Maybe if the ISS had something like, oh, I don't know, maybe a Centrifuge Accommodations Module [wikipedia.org] we could start answering questions like that.
Laron Syndrome (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
A rare type of Dwarfism.
http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff... [purrsia.com]
Why we can't go to Mars... yet (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
tldr;
* only 40% of missions have actually succeeded, i.e. not crashed
* microgravity will render astronauts helpless. I.e., unlike earth, there won't be anybody at the destination to carry you off on a stretcher and treat you back to health. (Bone loss and vision changes/glaucoma, low blood pressure, T-cell reductions). You need a rotating setup for centripital gravity.
* a piece of rock the size of a beebee can wreak enormous damage to the ship; think Apollo 13
* radiation; a solar flare would be fatal to astronauts.Van Allen belts mostly protect against charged particles. If a flare hits a mission outside the Van Allen belts, the astronauts will die eventually, unless the mission carries literally tons of lead shields. The moon missions were lucky to not get hit. A Hohmann transfer orbit takes approx 6 months to get from earth to Mars (or visa versa). You will get hit by solar storms
If we could get an "ion-drive" to get us there in a month, that will cut down the the bone loss, and exposure to radiation.
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If we could get an "ion-drive" to get us there in a month, that will cut down the the bone loss, and exposure to radiation.
Does Mars provide any real protection against radiation?
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If we could get an "ion-drive" to get us there in a month, that will cut down the the bone loss, and exposure to radiation.
Does Mars provide any real protection against radiation?
Yes, by virtue of being made of rock. Just being in orbit will cut out ~half of cosmic radiation, and a surface colony could have buildings underground or covered in sandbags or bricks to get greater protection. People walking on the surface would still get elevated exposure compared to Earth, because the atmosphere is so thin, but having a sleeping shelter that is thoroughly shielded may give the body enough of an opportunity to heal and recover such that the long-term effects are mitigated.
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Scott Kelly was still able to move around, function, and decline to go to the hospital in the described scenario for his first 48 hours after returning to Earth. Clearly if he'd been landed on Mars he'd have been able to function, even though he probably still wouldn't enjoy 30% gravity.
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One way to address the solar storm problem could be to develop a constant-thrust fission engine. It gets us to the destination in a shorter time, and if a storm does occur enroute the crew could hide behind the dense fuel as shielding.
The remarkably adaptable human (Score:2)
I find the idea that we can change so much to be intriguing, not a problem so much as a sign of opportunities. It makes me wonder if anyone has ever researched the changes that would occur in an environment with increased gravity.
What would happen if you were to put an athlete in a huge centrifuge and gradually increasing the "gravity" for a year prior to the Olympics? You'd probably have to get them out a few weeks early so that they could relearn dexterity in our lower environment, but the increase in str
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> It makes me wonder if anyone has ever researched the changes that would occur in an environment with increased gravity.
I believe there is prior work on that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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It's not really that simple..and I bet someone training there would do much worse than with 'normal' gravity.
There are three key parts to exemplary performance when training: specificity, specificity, specificity.
It would take a long time to adapt to such an environment, all movement would be different, and probably muscles engaged in a different way. Let's look at a sport like shot put - you'd think 'oh, they'll get used to resisting more force', but not really, they'd just get better at shot put in higher
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Oh geez, I totally forgot about that one!! I take it all back!!!
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Buck Rogers in the 25th Century figured this one out. It makes you a bit camp, not at all muscly, but incredibly strong (even if you're "considered something of a weakling" on your home planet).
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Luna First, then Mars (Score:4, Interesting)
Luna is the key to getting off this planet.
1) We master fast, safe travel to and from Luna. Think some kind of cross between Space-X and the Shuttle and Apollo LEM. Maybe something like Space-X takes you to IIS, then you board a Shuttle to Luna orbit, then a sturdy LEM departs the cargo bay or top half, and lands on Luna surface then can take-off back to Shuttle leaving nothing behind, then Shuttle travels back to IIS, then Space-X back down to Earth while Shuttle stays in orbit.
2) We establish a permanent colony on Luna. Dig down and use Lunar rock to shield from radiation. Build large loops underground that centrifuge up to 1G for normal living. Learn hard lessons of living off Earth, but with not too horrible 4 day return if needed using technology in Step 1.
3) Build Space Elevator - it is possible on Luna with existing materials and technology. Very hard if we have to ship the materials up, but we may find what we need on Luna.
4) Use Lunar resources to build large interplanetary vessel powered with ion drive in Luna orbit with the Elevator. Step 3 is huge, but this will make Step 3 look like a picnic. It would have to have enough shielding to keep radiation down to earth normal levels, rotate to simulate 1G for living, and be able to make the trip to Mars, or elsewhere, and back without refueling, and carry it's own Space-X, or two, for landing on the surface and taking you back up to the ship and all the fuel that requires.
5) Make permanent colony on Mars using lessons learned in Step 2. Dig down to shield. Centrifuge to 1G for living. Etc.
We get to Mars eventually, but we learn how to get there and how to live there by doing it on Luna first. Next would be in the Asteroid Belt on some minor planets. Or perhaps turning large asteroids into space stations. Lots of possibilities once you know how to get this far.
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Dig down and use Lunar rock to shield from radiation. Build large loops underground that centrifuge up to 1G for normal living.
Getting tunnel boring machines onto the moon isn't exactly a walk in the park. Getting excavating equipment to the moon isn't going to be cheap or easy.
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Step 1 is actually:
1) Become an anorganic 'species'.
Everything else is much, much easier after that.
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The main issue with a permanent base on the moon as opposed to Mars is the lack of resources up there. It's feasible to be self sustaining on Mars, although regular cargo shipments would make life a lot easier. On the moon any base would be reliant on regular supply missions from Earth just to survive.
Your method is probably safer but also much more expensive, and therefore highly unlikely to ever start and highly likely to be cancelled half way through. Practically aiming for Mars directly is a better opti
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Agree wholeheartedly. People are so infatuated with a Mars flag raising exercise. We need to PROVE that humans can live in the unprecedented level of isolation that a Mars trip will demand first. The worst thing that could happen is some catastrophic accident or unforeseen circumstance that kills a crew and sets manned space travel back 20-30 years.
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A space elevator requires fixed points at both ends.
No it doesn't. A space elevator is in orbit (geosynchronous orbit if you want it to be useful), neither end need to be hooked to something. In practice, it will be easier to have an end hooked to the planet and a counterweight past geosync so you don't have to make a tether that is twice as long but it's certainly not required. The parent post to yours wasn't suggesting stringing an elevator from the earth to the moon (which wouldn't work at all) -- he was talking about making a lunar elevator, which wou
Once again... (Score:2)
Maybe the most important discovery from ISS? (Score:2)
The pipe dream that we're going to float all over the solar system, hop out on zero-G weakened legs, and explore the surface of another world for 6 months.
We're probably going to have to wait until we've developed rotation spacecraft. And, this WON'T be trivial because the Coriolis (?) effect means you have the make the spacecraft sufficiently large for humans to adjust to the rotation. Spinning an upper stage of a Saturn V won't do it.
The trouble with Mars (Score:4, Interesting)
We have perfect data on what 1g does to a person. Following extended ISS and MIR missions, we have pretty decent data on 0g - and the answer is that it slowly kills us. But we have literally no data WHATEVER on what 0.17g (moon) or 0.38g (mars) does to us.
Is that enough gravity to avoid 100% of the problems in 0g? Does it actually have ALL of the problems of 0g?
We really have no clue.
Given the nature of orbits and getting to Mars and back, you either have to stay for no longer than 2 weeks - or you have to stay for an entire year. If we send people to Mars for 2 weeks - after 6 months in zero-g flight - and with another 6 months of zero-g to get home again - the effect on the crew will be within the range of adverse conditions that we've seen for 12 months in zero-g (VERY BAD!), regardless of what 2 weeks at Mars gravity does to them. But if we send them for an entire year - then they could easily be anywhere between dead and fully healthy when they head home.
The 2 week mission provides us with no information whatever. The second approach is REALLY dangerous. If Mars gravity is no better than zero-g then the astronauts will have had 2 years of inadequate gravity...and they may well end up dead. We have NO CLUE what 2 years of inadequate-gravity does to people.
So what we NEED to be doing - as a matter of urgency - is sending a spinning 1/3rd g artificial gravity environment into orbit and sticking some astronauts inside it for months at a time. All we need is a reasonable sized crew compartment (Hi Bigelow guys! This is your thing!) and a decent counter-weight with a strong cable between them. All the crew have to do is live there and exercise daily. Heck, I bet we could find people who'd pay millions to do it.
This is actually a MUCH more important thing to know than what we'll gain by sending people to Mars. It determines whether mankind has any kind of future at all in space or whether it's robots all the way.
None of the efforts to get people to Mars appear to have that anywhere in their mission plans...which is crazy!
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Just a shot from the hip, but I'll bet living in 0.17g or 0.38g would have effects somewhat like 83% and 62% of what Scott Kelly described. I mean, I have SOME clue.
You hyperbole a lot.
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Perhaps paraplegics, I mean, how would a quadriplegic even operate the toilet? With their mouth?
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Not the best idea. You need arms to get around in space.
People that are just missing legs might make sense.
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Haven't you seen the movie WALL-E?
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I would argue that he *should* go to the E.R., or see a doctor for the pain at least. There are doctors that have seen at least one of the 533 people that have been to space. I bet you NASA has the number to a few of those doctors too.
Good advice, I'm sure it never dawned on this NASA Astronaut that he should see a NASA physician after returning to earth, the first thing he did when he landed was probably to hop out of the Soyuz and catch an Uber home and go to bed like the slacker he is. Probably never even occurred to anyone at NASA to have him see a physician. Sounds like they should have just talked to you.
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Of the 15 people that have spent more than a year in space does not constitute a statistically significant sample size
Oh really? What, pray, is the statistical test you are using to determine a sufficient sample size?
Seriously, don't play that card if you can't back it up.
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This has to be a troll.
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Thank You for that.
I swear at this pace they are going to start teaching the flat Earth theory in U.S. Schools.
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Spacers gotta be spacers. it's a religion. Don't try reasoning with him.
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There's lots of things we can do that we aren't doing because of the cost. We could be building a vehicle right now that would send a man to Mars at the 2024 launch window. But we're talking about at least 10+ years after that for a good reason: nobody wants to spend the kind of money it would take to have the kind of program where you could commit to an actual date for a mission. But we are willing to spend enough to kick the can down the road roughly in the direction of Mars.
Same goes with engineering
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There's lots of things we can do that we aren't doing because of the cost. We could be building a vehicle right now that would send a man to Mars at the 2024 launch window. But we're talking about at least 10+ years after that for a good reason: nobody wants to spend the kind of money it would take to have the kind of program where you could commit to an actual date for a mission. But we are willing to spend enough to kick the can down the road roughly in the direction of Mars.
Same goes with engineering systems. It would be great to have a non-rocket launch system that could put stuff in orbit. That would save a ton of money on a per-mission basis, but nobody wants to spend the kind of money it would take to even start seriously looking at a space elevator or sky hook.
There are some useful intermediate steps that would also make a Mars mission much more realistic and affordable, though they are likely decades away -- like the ability to mine nearby asteroids for fuel and other supplies (like water, which could be turned into fuel). Getting 5 tons of fuel into geosynchronous orbit would take around 250 tons of fuel using today's rockets. Getting that fuel from a space based asteroid could be much more efficient. Even getting it from the moon would be better than getting i
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I agree. I'm just pointing out there's a world of difference between imagining some system built and operating and imagining how to get it built and operating, and the differences start with where you're going to get the money.
Re:sigh .. the centrifical effect (Score:4, Informative)
The first intermediate step which we are fully capable of doing is creating a much larger space station to use as the jumping off point for other missions into the solar system. The most expensive and dangerous piece of manned space travel is getting out of the gravity well. We have enough available lift capacity to move construction supplies, man power, and the supplies need to support human life.
That sounds like an expensive and wasteful way to prepare for space travel to an unknown destination and unknown timeframe with a spacecraft of unknown design. What supplies do you send? How do you know they'll be useful 10 years from now when you're ready to use them?
You could send water and assume it'll be used for *something*, but if you find a way to get it from an asteroid (or from the moon) you may have wasted a lot of fuel and space launches when you could have been launching aluminum I-Beams for construction. Oh, but when you're ready to build your ion-jet spacecraft, you find that you've launched beams that are much too heavy for the task. Or you're using hydrogen-oxygen engines and now you've found that you underestimated the strength needed.
The most expensive and dangerous piece of manned space travel is getting out of the gravity well
Launching those supplies ahead of time doesn't make it easier to get out of the gravity well. Finding the supplies you need outside of the gravity well does.
The obligatory (Score:2)
you've found that you underestimated the strength needed.
Nonsense!! MOAR STRUTS!!
Re: sigh .. the centrifical effect (Score:4, Interesting)
Yep. And what separates reality from sci-fi isn't just what is physically possible. It's often what is financially possible.
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The planet where NASA has never received an appropriation to build and fly centrifugal-grav space stations, professor.
Re:Did he just hover over the same 2D plane? (Score:4, Interesting)
Probably sending a high-altitude balloon would have accomplished the same thing for 1,000x less spending...
And then just raise its orbit to get it out of the atmosphere and accelerate it to a stable orbital velocity and keep it in free-fall like the ISS (around 17,000mph) and you're there!
Though you'll need a bigger balloon to carry the hundreds (thousands?) of tons of rocket needed to get it into orbit.
I think you've just reinvented the Rockoon [wikipedia.org], which is still being pursued, but not, afaik, for large payloads like a space capsule that can support a human.
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Exactly what I was thinking; they just need better hamster wheels. Maybe they can license the technology from the Gravitron at a local carnival.
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A better idea than most think. Not only can your spinning contraption create gravity, but also create a protective Magnetic field around it.
Re:2001 A Space Odyssey... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, back when Larry Niven's Ringworld became popular, some engineering students actually did the math based on Niven's own description of the fictional ring, and concluded that the Ringworld was not stable around its star. Niven later integrated those stability problems into the plot of future Ringworld novels.
Would a circular station like in 2001 or an O'Neill Cylinder like Babylon 5 actually be as stable as we all assume? Would there have to be movable masses located around the perimeter that could be shifted to account for internal mass movement of people and materials? Would it simply make more sense to have a craft on a long tether, tied to a counterweight on the far end, the whole thing tumbling as it travels? The latter solution probably would be a poor one for a close-orbiting station but might make for a good interplanetary craft, where the counterweight could be machinery or supplies that are useless during the transit but would be essential on arrival. Such a craft would probably need a winch to pull the tether in and bring to two halves together, that winch itself could be in the counterweight part to help ensure that there's sufficient mass for the system on a return trip that presumably has shed a lot of the original mass.
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I suppose that's part of why I speculate on cables, winches, and two distinct structures. We can already build cables strong enough out of steel, and we can build platforms that can handle considerable weight (ie mass and acceleration) upon which to build habitats or cargo containers that themselves would be more like terrestrial buildings in the direction of force they would have to withstand.
Sometimes I wonder how much equivalent to gravity would be necessary to forestall degradation of the body, versus
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That is a good point.
Come to think of it, if a craft were designed correctly, it might even be useful for reintegrating Martian visitors back to Earth at the end of the trip, by starting with Martian-average gravity and slowly increasing it until about 3/4 of the way it's up to Earth-average. Make it gradual and maybe it'll be easier.
Re:2001 A Space Odyssey... (Score:4, Interesting)
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I was under the impression that because the Ringworld was a ring, any perturbations in its orbit would destabilize it gravitationally relative to the star, and once part of it got close enough, gravity would pull it into contact with the star.
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The problem is that the Ringworld was rigid, which was necessary to spin it fast enough keep the atmosphere in. An airtight cylinder should work fine.
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It's not the zero G that's a problem, it's the lack of oxygen. I'd be surprised at a mutation that lets us get by without air!
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I'm betting on the Shadows myself.
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For a three tubular spoke setup, you could have balancing weights that could move in or out along each of the t
You Troll, but there is a kernel of Truth (Score:4, Informative)
Of course there is no "anti-gravity" but there is a way to create gravity...centrifugal force.
This is so well know I won't even explain it. The engineering has already been done on this at NASA and it's not really that big of deal, although it calls for a more expensive, complex and larger space craft.
It is obvious than humans were not designed for a weightless environment and longer space missions to Mars or anywhere else will require a rotating work/living space.
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Don't be so sure that it's obvious. Even NASA themselves [nasa.gov] are comparing the International Space Station with the rotating space station from the movie 2001 even though the ISS doesn't rotate, which was the main obvious feature in the movie.
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Even NASA themselves [nasa.gov] are comparing the International Space Station with the rotating space station from the movie 2001
We have lost our Space Program. Sad.
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it calls for a more expensive, complex and larger space craft.
Not really. It just calls for two separate craft joined together with a piece of string.
Put astronauts in one, supplies in the other (or whatever). Spin it up, fling it towards Mars.
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[...] although it calls for a more expensive, complex and larger space craft.
Besides "these stupid scientists", you need room for teams for every craft and expertise. Think a few million people at least, and all the equipment they need.
Yes, larger space craft could do.
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I know that replying to you is to an extent playing into your racism and xenophobia, but you do realize that if you regularly send only a particular racial group like South Asians out into space as a matter of regular colonization and settlement and do so fully expecting them to adapt and be capable of living and working in those conditions, that the group that you profess so much hatred for will be the most successful racial group in human history, having been the only group to successfully colonize space
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if you regularly send only a particular racial group like South Asians out into space as a matter of regular colonization and settlement and do so fully expecting them to adapt and be capable of living and working in those conditions
That's what Japan is for, first we nuked them, then their reactor blew, now the North Koreans are going to misfire onto them, another 3-4 rounds and we'll be able to isolate Human-compatible radiation resistant genes to splice into everyone. The first step to space colonization is irradiating the fuck out of the Japanese.
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... you've never seen Japanese movies and hentai, I guess. Continue irradiating them like that and you get Gozilla and tentacle monsters with a fixation on school girls.