from the this-is-your-brain-on-cosmic-rays... dept.
As NASA prepares for the first manned spaceflight to Mars, questions have surfaced concerning the potential for increased risks associated with exposure to the spectrum of highly energetic nuclei that comprise galactic cosmic rays. Animal models have revealed an unexpected sensitivity of mature neurons in the brain to charged particles found in space. Astronaut autonomy during long-term space travel is particularly critical as is the need to properly manage planned and unanticipated events, activities that could be compromised by accumulating particle traversals through the brain.
Using mice subjected to space-relevant fluences of charged particles, we show significant cortical- and hippocampal-based performance decrements 6 weeks after acute exposure. Animals manifesting cognitive decrements exhibited marked and persistent radiation-induced reductions in dendritic complexity and spine density along medial prefrontal cortical neurons known to mediate neurotransmission specifically interrogated by our behavioral tasks.
This was stated a little more readably at ScienceDaily:
What happens to an astronaut's brain during a mission to Mars? Nothing good. It's besieged by destructive particles that can forever impair cognition, according to a radiation oncology study. Exposure to highly energetic charged particles -- much like those found in the galactic cosmic rays that bombard astronauts during extended spaceflights -- cause significant damage to the central nervous system, resulting in cognitive impairments.
[Related]: Space Radiation On the Long Trip To Mars Could Make Astronauts Dumber
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @10:14AM
Everybody know Demmycrats love Space! Obama's a Demmycrat, right?! Vote EIGHT MORE YEARS OF OBAMA!
Keep the NIGGER-IN-CHIEF black!
VOTE BARAK 2016
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @10:19AM
Naw, helmets are too expensive. Send 'em up without shielding. This is the American space program. We can't afford safety gear. Let Obamacare fix it.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @11:10AM
Congratulations, you're stupid enough for Slashdot. Off you go.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @10:22AM
Obama's already twice as smart as the average Nigger. He's guaranteed to come back as a SUPER INTELLIGENT CHIMP.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @10:37AM
Still better the Bush Jr at its peak, ain't it?
(Score: 3, Funny) by VLM on Monday May 04 2015, @11:40AM
What no systemd jokes? You guys are slipping...
Obviously the solution is one way colonization anyway. The first generation aren't going to last long anyway due to accidents and stuff. Get up there, get into the remotely manufactured underground dorms, and start reproducing. The live video feeds of the action sent back to the earth will pay for the costs of shipping if you send plenty of hot ones and they usually aren't too smart anyway so how anyone would notice is a mystery. Give the kids a high bandwidth connection to Kahn, wikipedia, and coursera and in 20 years we'll have smart people on mars not just people (who happen to be dumb).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @01:54PM
Give the kids a high bandwidth connection to Kahn, wikipedia, and coursera
If you can find a way to create a high bandwidth connection from Mars to Earth then you'll have practically found a license to print money. Now of course you personally may not be the one to profit from this due to patents and IP theft and litigation (see: intermittent windshield wipers), but somebody will.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @04:22PM
It's not the bandwidth that is the issue.
The latency on the other hand....
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Monday May 04 2015, @11:44AM
while it may seem like a big issue, there is a simple low-tech solution to the matter: heavy elements. heavy elements are great for blocking radiation which is something we will need on mars anyway even if you plan on living as mole person on Mars. honestly though, the issue with going to mars isn't simply getting there, it's staying alive in the long term. mars isn't exactly a luxury hotel, so really, this is a moot point at best.
(Score: 2) by Ryuugami on Monday May 04 2015, @12:04PM
Of course, the problem with heavy elements is lifting them into the orbit. That's why we should first establish either a moon base or mining operations on near-Earth asteroids, preferably both.
At least until we develop a decent magnetic shield :)
If a shit storm's on the horizon, it's good to know far enough ahead you can at least bring along an umbrella. - D.Weber
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 04 2015, @12:33PM
That's why this whole mission-to-Mars thing is ridiculous. We need to be concentrating on closer projects like the ones you listed. Once we have asteroid and Moon mining operations, we can build things we need in space (or Moon's much shallower gravity well), and it won't cost much in fuel. It'd be even better if we built a space elevator on the Moon (where it'd be pretty easy due to the low gravity), as that wouldn't require fuel at all, just energy which we can get from photovoltaics as sunlight is abundant on the Moon since there's no atmosphere. We should also be building habitats on the Moon, quite possibly underground as there's evidence of giant underground lava tubes there which would be perfect for this.
Why there's such a push to skip all this and go straight to Mars, I have no idea.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Ryuugami on Monday May 04 2015, @12:49PM
Why there's such a push to skip all this and go straight to Mars, I have no idea.
Because "we went to the Moon 50 years ago", so it ain't glamorous enough for a publicity stunt :/
What ever happened to that asteroid mining company, anyway?
If a shit storm's on the horizon, it's good to know far enough ahead you can at least bring along an umbrella. - D.Weber
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 04 2015, @01:40PM
Because "we went to the Moon 50 years ago", so it ain't glamorous enough for a publicity stunt :/
Good point.
But it's annoying: the Moon is close, and we could do a lot of interesting projects there without worrying about long-term affects of cosmic radiation on peoples' brains. Even better, we could open it up to tourism; how many billionaires wouldn't want a ride to the Moon?
What ever happened to that asteroid mining company, anyway?
That one that group of billionaires was working on? I'm not sure, but that wasn't very long ago, so it's probably still in the works.
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Monday May 04 2015, @09:14PM
IMO, the future lies 'up and out there'.
And I dispute the wisdom of waiting until we are 'backed into a corner' to start working on sustainability off Earth. OMG!!11!! The MONEY!!
Yeah right, and it will be miraculously cheap 50-100 years from now? Hah! Well documented history shows that reality proves different.
Every time that 'put it off, it costs money' decision is made(almost always-we are still burning petroleum for example!), it always hurts bad, and is half-assed done in a mad rush, and is super-expensive.
If we had spent the trillions of dollars on NASA/space that we have spent on 'the war on drugs' and the two recent decade long wars, there is no telling where we could go, and stay 'out there' by now. It really disgusts me to think about that.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 04 2015, @09:17PM
Did you even read my post? I'm advocating asteroid mining, lunar mining, and lunar exploration and settlement. How is that not "up and out there"?
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Monday May 04 2015, @09:35PM
Uhmm...I was not disputing any of your propsals. I agree.
I just questioned specifically the viability of a space elevator on our moon.
Or did you miss the last sentence of my reply, as in "...sounds good to me." ?
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Monday May 04 2015, @09:51PM
Sorry to double-reply, but I confused some of my comments earlier.
Ignore the part about missing my last sentence. (that was in another comment) sorry about that. :-)
The misunderstanding is regretable, but I really was not meaning to seem to disagree or argue.
That was an attempt to throw in my two cents along with yours. I ended up going off in a rant about all the 'science' budget cuts/stagnation the past several decades.
My apologies for the confusion and chaos, I meant to be agreeing with you.
I'm an old NASA brat, and 'space stuff' has been one of my lifelong interests, and after close to six decades, I still get excited about the subject.
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Monday May 04 2015, @08:56PM
Unless my perception of space elevators is incorrect, our moon might not be a good candidate for one.
The way I understand it, a moon/planet needs to rotate/spin on it's axis for a space elevator.
Other than that, it all sounded good to me. :-)
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 04 2015, @09:26PM
Unless my perception of space elevators is incorrect, our moon might not be a good candidate for one.
The way I understand it, a moon/planet needs to rotate/spin on it's axis for a space elevator.
Your perception of the Moon is incorrect. It does rotate on an axis. It also happens to be tidally locked to the Earth so you always see the same side of it. That doesn't mean it isn't rotating. From your perspective, it seems to not be moving. However, if you were standing on the Moon (and not at one of the poles), you would notice that the Sun is only visible at some times, and not at others, and these times are not fixed to the position of the Earth; this is because it's rotating as it orbits the Earth.
You do have a good point though: if some space body were not rotating at all, you couldn't have a space elevator, because it relies on having a counterweight in geosynchronous orbit. (Or would it be called "lunasynchronous" on the Moon?)
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Monday May 04 2015, @09:39PM
Okay, I thought that Luna did not spin on it's, but just orbited the Earth showing the same hemisphere to us always.
(Score: 2) by Fluffeh on Monday May 04 2015, @10:24PM
Okay, I thought that Luna did not spin on it's, but just orbited the Earth showing the same hemisphere to us always.
So think about that for a moment, something that orbits another body - yet always has the same side facing it. How could that object NOT be spinning on its own axis? :)
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Tuesday May 05 2015, @12:08PM
Yes, I see it now.
I got myself trapped into thinking soley from a 'bound on earth' perspective.
Yes, I am just another earth-bound misfit... (apologies to Pink Floyd))
BTW, thanks for the reply and correction. :-)
I would much rather be correct in science discussions, than thinking I am 'right'.
(Score: 2) by Ryuugami on Tuesday May 05 2015, @12:43AM
orbited the Earth showing the same hemisphere to us always
Yes, but that is because the rotation and revolution are synchronized (the Wikipedia article on tidal locking [wikipedia.org] has some illustrations).
An experiment:
- Take your cellphone, turn the camera towards a wall, then spin around with the cellphone in your hand while keeping the camera pointed at the same wall. From your point of view, it will seem like the phone made one full rotation, but the camera is fixed on a single wall - the phone didn't rotate around it's own axis.
- Next, keep the camera pointed away from you while you spin around, you will always see the same side, so it will seem stationary to you. If you look at the video, though, you will see it made the full circle - the phone rotated around it's own axis.
If a shit storm's on the horizon, it's good to know far enough ahead you can at least bring along an umbrella. - D.Weber
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Tuesday May 05 2015, @11:57AM
LOL! I love the explaination, even though I don't(never have) owned a cell phone. (moot point about cell phone--I understood it)
Thanks, because I was still trying to wrap my head around it. Now it's so obvious. D'oh!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2015, @03:00PM
Since "geosynchonous" is derived from the Greek word for earth (geos), not the latin one (terra), I'd also expect the corresponding orbit on the moon to be named after the Greek word (selene), not the Latin word (luna).
Thus I'd expect the orbit to be called "selenosynchronous".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @01:05PM
Either that, or we develop the Star Trek transporter. Then we can just beam the people to Mars and back. :-)
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday May 04 2015, @07:29PM
Call me old fashioned, but ain't nobody deconstructing me atomically and reconstructing me remotely. You could also run into problems, if you didn't successfully de-atomize the first you and sucessfully re-atomized the new you at the remote location. I'm think of the same issues in the movie "The Prestige".
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @11:23PM
if you didn't [...] [successfully] re-atomized the new you at the remote location
Another problem - biological contamination:
"The Fly" 1958 [wikipedia.org] 1986 [wikipedia.org]
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday May 05 2015, @01:39AM
Exactly. Dig out some blocks from low gravity moon regolith and use a 4 meter thick layer to shield the spaceship. Water would be even better and is said to be present on the Moon too.
The question becomes, is the expense of getting Moon stuff into orbit too high?
(Score: 2) by Ryuugami on Tuesday May 05 2015, @10:55AM
The question becomes, is the expense of getting Moon stuff into orbit too high?
As mentioned in another comment here, we could build a space elevator on the Moon even with our current technology, no unobtainium required. Hell, even a mass driver should work as a launching device.
Which means that there are significant upfront costs, but once you have the system up and running every launch is cheap.
Another alternative that sometimes appears in SF is finding a small asteroid, strapping a few engines on it and digging out a habitation area in the middle. Bam, spaceship with as much shielding as you can move around.
If a shit storm's on the horizon, it's good to know far enough ahead you can at least bring along an umbrella. - D.Weber
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @11:51AM
why so difficult? if we just want to get dumber we just need to build more nuclear reactors ...
(Score: 2) by mtrycz on Monday May 04 2015, @12:18PM
One of the rare cases where I find myself agreeing with parent, but would still tag it as flamebait.
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Monday May 04 2015, @08:02PM
That's why we need "+1 Flaimebait" as a voting option
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Monday May 04 2015, @12:06PM
Have they never heard how dose fractionation [wikipedia.org] has different effects than a single dose?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @12:22PM
I'm conflicted. Posts facts, but credits Gizmodo.....
(Score: 2) by Alphatool on Monday May 04 2015, @12:19PM
This is a really interesting study, but it needs a significant amount more work before we can apply this to space travel. The experiment exposed mice to a very high radiation field (0.5 to 1.0 Gy per minute) then tested the mice 6 weeks later. This high dose rate followed by rest does not accurately represent the exposure pattern of space travel, in particular it doesn't allow for threshold effects in brain repair mechanisms. Some of the results of the experiment indicate that these mechanisms may be significant. In particular the fact that no decreased performance was observed after a 5 cGy dose of O18 but it was observed after a 30 cGy dose suggests that the brain is much better at handling low doses than this experiment suggests at first sight. There really needs to be more investigation of chronic exposure rather than a single exposure event, although this does make the experiment much more difficult to execute.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @01:10PM
Just put some mice on a trip to Mars. Then we will see what the actual exposure does to their brain. As well as any issues with life support that we might want to solve before sending humans.
Remember, the first living being in space wasn't a human either.
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Monday May 04 2015, @09:25PM
That comment will be the doom of us all, when 147 years from now, Earth is invaded and conquered by our future furry mutant rodent overlords!
And AC, the history books will rightly attribute the blame to you.
It might be a good idea to change your name, just in case.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @10:54PM
To study deep-space mice at the cellular level (as was done with the study in the story) would require bringing them back in good condition.
Things that occurred to me:
- Lifetime of a mouse vs round-trip duration
- Remotely preserving corpses of subjects without further damaging those
.
the first living being in space
Mongrel canine Laika [wikipedia.org]
Born: c.1954
Died: November 3, 1957 (before the 4th orbit of Earth by Sputnik 2).
Cause of death: Overheating due to inadequate|failed temperature control system.
Remains: Disintegrated during re-entry April 14, 1958
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by danomac on Monday May 04 2015, @06:20PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2015, @03:08PM
I've already been on Mars. The bar was completely damaged afterwards. Therefore a warning: Mars is too weak to survive humans standing on it. Stay away.