Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Thursday October 27 2016, @09:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the just-stay-horizontal-and-wear-tight-spandex dept.

New research brings more bad news to astronauts thinking about long-haul space flights as spinal muscles shrink after months in space, scientists have found.

Floating around in space in an environment with little or no gravity is not good for the human body. Along with decreased bone density, nausea, a puffy face, possible cognitive deterioration, an astronaut's back starts to weaken too.

The research is part of NASA's wider project to study the physical effects space has on the body to prepare for long-haul flights to Mars.

Results from the NASA-funded research have been published in Spine, and show spinal damage persists months after the astronauts return to Earth.

Six NASA crew members were subjected to MRI scans before and after spending four to seven months floating around the microgravity conditions of the International Space Station.

NASA should send the astronauts into space with one of those inversion tables so they can hang upside down.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Dunbal on Thursday October 27 2016, @11:11PM

    by Dunbal (3515) on Thursday October 27 2016, @11:11PM (#419608)

    or keeping seals vacuum-tight on a partially rotating craft?

    If they can keep the propeller shaft seals on a submarine leak proof at 33 atmospheres, one atmosphere shouldn't be too hard to manage. I'm not saying it's easy. But the engineering is not impossible. As for the solar panels that's trivial - you have them on the non rotating section.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Insightful=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   4  
  • (Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday October 27 2016, @11:45PM

    by edIII (791) on Thursday October 27 2016, @11:45PM (#419627)

    I came here to say much the same thing. It's by no means a technically challenging project to create a crew habit with rotation. It's literally in nearly every single space movie simply because it's so logical to provide. I'm sure we originally got the idea from NASA. Your point is pretty good because in space it is less difficult to maintain an atmosphere than slightly above crush depth above the Laurentian Abyss.

    I'm surprised that they haven't tested that, and I was curious if there would be a difference between gravity provided that way, and gravity provided on Earth. The only difference I can imagine is the "gradient" between sections and from your feet to your head, but I imagine that represents a trivial amount of time per day.

    This isn't a small issue. If we send a thousand colonists to Mars without figuring this out, we're basically shipping a bunch of worker's compensation cases waiting to happen once they hit gravity and have to work.

    --
    Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Dunbal on Friday October 28 2016, @12:12AM

      by Dunbal (3515) on Friday October 28 2016, @12:12AM (#419644)

      And the best bit is you probably don't need the full 9.8ms^-2 to lose most of the harmful effects of zero G.

      • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday October 28 2016, @08:11AM

        by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Friday October 28 2016, @08:11AM (#419767) Homepage Journal

        And the best bit is you probably don't need the full 9.8ms^-2 to lose most of the harmful effects of zero G.

        An excellent point. Given that Mars gravity is ~0.4G (3.711 m/s2), probably something like 0.5 or 0.6G would be sufficient.

        This would be important even if there weren't physiological issues to deal with, since humans will need to move around with significant extra mass (P-suits, carrying instruments, perhaps even some construction) on them.

        In fact, even with 0.5 or 0.6G on the spacecraft, you'll probably want these folks doing exercise in a centrifuge as well, to maintain (or at least try to minimize loss of) muscle mass. This would probably be useful *on* Mars too.

        --
        No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28 2016, @06:04PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28 2016, @06:04PM (#419906)

          An excellent point. Given that Mars gravity is ~0.4G (3.711 m/s2), probably something like 0.5 or 0.6G would be sufficient.

          Citation please? Any actual scientific evidence or studies showing that 0.6G would be sufficient? And what would the definition of "sufficient" be? e.g. normal healthy individuals could live indefinitely in that g and also return to Earth G without too much problems and recover to full after a month?

          The last I checked this was cancelled: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifuge_Accommodations_Module [wikipedia.org]

          So there's probably not much science being done in that area.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by VanderDecken on Friday October 28 2016, @12:31AM

      by VanderDecken (5216) on Friday October 28 2016, @12:31AM (#419658)

      And here I thought it was in every space movie because the actors are easier to film that way

      --
      The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
      • (Score: 2) by edIII on Friday October 28 2016, @06:51PM

        by edIII (791) on Friday October 28 2016, @06:51PM (#419918)

        I thought it was because it was the only technically reasonable method (currently) to establish gravity in outer space, which is quite helpful to us. Yes, it does make it easier to film since we don't have Hollywood studios in orbit.

        You could just 'Star Trek' it and vaguely refer to the "gravity generators", but when kids are taught in school that you can simulate gravity with rotation, it becomes pretty obvious to put that in a movie... where you're trying to simulate gravity for the crew. It's fairly non-obvious that we have difficulty creating rotating crew habitats, although have we even tried?

        It's logical with strong scientific support, that's why I would think it would be in a movie. Otherwise animate it and refer to it as magic with elves in space :)

        --
        Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Friday October 28 2016, @01:20AM

      by bob_super (1357) on Friday October 28 2016, @01:20AM (#419678)

      There are the small issues of significantly accelerating the whole structure towards its destination, and negatively accelerating it when you get there, which interfere with building laterally. Solvable, but expensive.
      There is also the issue of a submerged submarine being exposed to temperatures varying from about 0C to at most 30C, which makes the mechanical engineering of moving parts a lot more trivial than space temperature variations.

      If engineers with a big budget haven't yet done something that seems obvious to you, it's highly likely that you don't know all the consequences as well as they do.

    • (Score: 2) by dry on Friday October 28 2016, @05:10AM

      by dry (223) on Friday October 28 2016, @05:10AM (#419735) Journal

      It's not really gravity though on a large enough scale it is pretty hard to tell the difference. The problem is that it won't be on that large of a scale. It has to be large enough that your head and feet (when standing) are moving about the same speed, otherwise you'll sense the difference, which leads to motion sickness and your body may just not respond correctly. As a worst case imagine a 12 foot spinning sphere. Your head would be in zero gravity and your feet at 1g.
      Not sure how large it should be and it is shame that they aren't taking advantage of the space station to do some experiments. Also be nice to know how little gravity it takes to stay relatively healthy.
      Walking even could be weird, especially when turning at a right angle. Drop something and it'll fall in an arc.
      One thought is to have 2 capsules tethered together (actually even better, tethered to the main rocket so the tethers would be half as long) and spin them. The longer the tether, the better, as long as the tether is strong enough.
      Other advantages could be having a spare spacecraft with you. One occupied and one full of supplies or both occupied, but only by half the possible crew. Things would have to kept in balance as well, easier with a central structure as one of the tethers could be shortened/lengthened.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28 2016, @07:27AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28 2016, @07:27AM (#419760)

        Not sure how large it should be and it is shame that they aren't taking advantage of the space station to do some experiments.

        If I recall, the last discussion on the subject came to the conclusion that the size necessary was somewhere between half a mile and a mile.

        Easy[1] solution: Launch three aircraft carriers, weld them together end to end, and set the whole thing in motion. Then only use the tiny portions at the ends, rather than the entire length of the resulting structure.

        [1] Calibrate sarcasm detector here.

  • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday October 28 2016, @05:56AM

    by mhajicek (51) on Friday October 28 2016, @05:56AM (#419744)

    Indeed. See "Smarter Every Day: Seven Holes In The International Space Station".

    --
    The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28 2016, @10:23AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28 2016, @10:23AM (#419785)

    If you're on a multi-month trip to mars, just rotate the whole damn craft.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28 2016, @11:17AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28 2016, @11:17AM (#419794)

    Shaft seals are completely different from a rotating crew compartment. How many wires and tubes are connected between the rotating section and the non-rotating section? The submarine would have few if any. A space station would need a lot going through that rotating connection. We can do that, but it isn't trivial. Even getting the extra components needed for that into space isn't trivial. The medical insurance is likely far less costly that the extra engineering and transport costs to get a rotating section and besides, we didn't even know of the medical need until recently.

    Second, 33 atmospheres is completely different from 0 atmospheres from an engineering perspectives. At 33 there's tons of pressure pushing in on the craft. That pressure will help seal any leaks in the frame. The pressure is helping you right up until it crushes you. With an outside pressure of 0, any leaks will be increased as the outward pressures forces them open even more. When you're inside a circle/dome/sphere, higher pressure on the outside helps maintain structural integrity where as higher pressure on the inside means you'll explode outward.