NASA G2

[SCFalken]

They also, however, have a habit of retaining fluid and changing shape in other ways due to being unable to work all parts of the body equally as well in microgravity as on Earth. Not a show stopper, but something to take into consideration when designing operational margins into pressure suits of any type.

 

 

The really interesting thing will be how fractional gravity affects us. We know all about 1g and quite a bit (not enough) about ~0g (microgravity), but next to nothing about how we will handle, say, .16g on the Moon, or .3g on Mars.

 

Will it still have deliterious bone and immuno effects, or will it be enough to keep us healthy? Obviously, several years on Mars would make a return to Earth arduous, but if that is the extent of it, we're in business.

 

 

Falken

[Jim Martin]

The really interesting thing will be how fractional gravity affects us. We know all about 1g and quite a bit (not enough) about ~0g (microgravity), but next to nothing about how we will handle, say, .16g on the Moon, or .3g on Mars.

 

Will it still have deliterious bone and immuno effects, or will it be enough to keep us healthy? Obviously, several years on Mars would make a return to Earth arduous, but if that is the extent of it, we're in business.

Falken

 

 

Recall in Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, after a relatively short stay on the Moon, you were essentially exiled from Earth for life due to physiological atrophy.

[ShotMagnet]

I think RAH was presuming something about bone-decalcification that may have been true for zero-micro-gee, but not necessarily so for larger fractions of 1g. Maybe the question is: at what fraction of 1g does the body tell itself that it's more cost-efficient to keep the bone as is?

 

Anybody know of studies done along those lines?

 

 

Shot

[Burncycle360]

Mount Dora on the crawler and you'd have one heck of a tank.

 

Or maybe one of the 16" turrets from the USS Iowa

 

Continental siege unit!

Edited July 18, 2007 by Burncycle360

[Josh]

I'm vaguely aware that humans can't survive in hard vacuum for reasons beyond oxygen starvation, but I'm unaware of the actual physiological effects. I recall some test situations at high altitude and vacuum chambers were individuals were *briefly* exposed to near hard vacuum to little ill effect once they were able to breath again (ie: no explosions, no blood boiling instantly, etc). In the long run is it that the lack of pressure would lead to fluids boiling in the extremities?

[Guest aevans]

I'm vaguely aware that humans can't survive in hard vacuum for reasons beyond oxygen starvation, but I'm unaware of the actual physiological effects. I recall some test situations at high altitude and vacuum chambers were individuals were *briefly* exposed to near hard vacuum to little ill effect once they were able to breath again (ie: no explosions, no blood boiling instantly, etc). In the long run is it that the lack of pressure would lead to fluids boiling in the extremities?

 

You would probably die of anoxia before your fluids boiled away. Remember, the fluids in your body are already at pretty high pressures WRT the outside world, even at sea level air pressure, and your body does a decent job of holding them in. You might get frothing in the lungs and boil off from places like the eye sockets and sinuses, but that would only cause localized injury. The image of blood boiling, etc. comes from early vacuum chamber experiments where a beaker full of water was exposed to near vacuum. Of course in that environment, without any container, the liquid water did boil, but that's not the case where the blood in your body is concerned.

 

From experience, it turns out that a pressure suit only has to provide about 5 psi of pressure to the surface of the skin for comfort and injury avoidance. Whether that pressure is applied by a gas or mechanically through a restrictive fabric is irrelevant.

[SCFalken]

Other angles of the suit:

 

 

 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...esuit-pictures/

 

Falken

Edited July 19, 2007 by SCFalken

[Ivanhoe]

Where's the pocket for the iPod?

[Josh]

You would probably die of anoxia before your fluids boiled away. Remember, the fluids in your body are already at pretty high pressures WRT the outside world, even at sea level air pressure, and your body does a decent job of holding them in. You might get frothing in the lungs and boil off from places like the eye sockets and sinuses, but that would only cause localized injury. The image of blood boiling, etc. comes from early vacuum chamber experiments where a beaker full of water was exposed to near vacuum. Of course in that environment, without any container, the liquid water did boil, but that's not the case where the blood in your body is concerned.

 

From experience, it turns out that a pressure suit only has to provide about 5 psi of pressure to the surface of the skin for comfort and injury avoidance. Whether that pressure is applied by a gas or mechanically through a restrictive fabric is irrelevant.

 

 

Is there any estimation as to how long and individual would survive sans pressure suit, but with some kind of mask/helmet that did provide oxygen and fit tightly enough so as to not just blast O2 into space around the seems? Not really practical, I'm just curious what half life of an individual is due strickly to pressure loss, not simple O2 loss to the brain.

[SCFalken]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-080

 

"NASA reports that a severe ongoing dust storm on the Red Planet has blocked 99 percent of the direct sunlight that powers the Opportunity rover. If these conditions persist for too long, it could finally bring an end to the marathon mission of this robot geologist, and perhaps of its partner Spirit as well. 'Before the dust storms began blocking sunlight last month, Opportunity's solar panels had been producing about 700 watt hours of electricity per day, enough to light a 100-watt bulb for seven hours. When dust in the air reduced the panels' daily output to less than 400 watt hours, the rover team suspended driving and most observations, including use of the robotic arm, cameras and spectrometers to study the site where Opportunity is located ... A possible outcome of this storm is that one or both rovers could be damaged permanently or even disabled. Engineers will assess the capability of each rover after the storm clears.'"

 

 

So, does the recurrence of planetary-scale dust storms (and their effects on solar reception) essentially put paid to the Solar vs Nuclear debate wrt the powerplant for Mars expeditions (and colonization)?

 

 

 

Falken

[Guest aevans]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-080

So, does the recurrence of planetary-scale dust storms (and their effects on solar reception) essentially put paid to the Solar vs Nuclear debate wrt the powerplant for Mars expeditions (and colonization)?

Falken

 

It should. Even if you put out enough cells to compensate for reduced insolation during dust storms, you still incur EVA to go do PM checks and clean them off after the storm.

[SCFalken]

Northrop Grumman just bought Scaled Composites!

 

http://www.space.com/news/070720_scaled_bought.html

 

According to Space.com, Northrop Grumman Corporation agreed on July 5 to increase its stake in Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites (designers of Space Ship One, Proteus) from 40 percent to 100 percent. They have purchased the company outright, marking a new future for the space pioneering firm. 'Scaled Composites currently is working with Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic venture on a vehicle designated for now as SpaceShipTwo, which would carry two pilots and six paying passengers into suborbital space for a few minutes of weightlessness. The company also is building a new carrier aircraft, dubbed WhiteKnight2, that will carry SpaceShipTwo to an altitude of 15 kilometers before releasing it to soar to suborbital space. The two companies last year formed a joint venture called the Spaceship Company to build the new vehicles.

 

Nothing says "investor confidence" quite like buying the company...

 

Good prospects for SpaceShipTwo?

 

Falken

[Guest aevans]

Northrop Grumman just bought Scaled Composites!

 

http://www.space.com/news/070720_scaled_bought.html

Nothing says "investor confidence" quite like buying the company...

 

Good prospects for SpaceShipTwo?

 

Falken

 

They probably just want access to SC's patented and proprietary processes.

[SCFalken]

Lunar Lander overview:

 

http://www.aiaa-houston.org/cy0607/event-2...IAA_2-20-07.pdf

 

 

Falken

[TheSilentType]

Is there any estimation as to how long and individual would survive sans pressure suit, but with some kind of mask/helmet that did provide oxygen and fit tightly enough so as to not just blast O2 into space around the seems? Not really practical, I'm just curious what half life of an individual is due strickly to pressure loss, not simple O2 loss to the brain.

 

If you didn't have a pressure suit but did have have a pressurized mask or helmet I think that you'd end up dying of an air embolism or lung over-expansion. The air you're breathing has to be the same pressure as the environment you're in.

[Jeff]

Lunar Lander overview:

 

http://www.aiaa-houston.org/cy0607/event-2...IAA_2-20-07.pdf

Falken

That's a mighty big lander and a heck of a climb down and up for surface activity.

 

"That's one frigging giant leap for a man, and one small step forward for mankind"

[Guest aevans]

That's a mighty big lander and a heck of a climb down and up for surface activity.

 

"That's one frigging giant leap for a man, and one small step forward for mankind"

 

Remember, it's 1/6 g. That means that if you were a 200 lb. man on Earth and had a suit that weighed as much as you did, on the Moon the whole package of you and the suit would weigh only 67 lbs. Climbing up 20 feet would be no big deal. As for the overall size and crew/cargo capacity of the lander, see what you get when you use two launches -- one for cargo, one for crew -- instead of trying to do it all with one throw?

[SCFalken]

Word is that the mature mission cycles will be:

 

Per annum: 1 exploratory expedition (not connected with the Outpost).

2 Outpost Crew Rotations.

1 Outpost resupply sortie (unmanned).

 

 

 

Falken

[Guest aevans]

Word is that the mature mission cycles will be:

 

Per annum: 1 exploratory expedition (not connected with the Outpost).

2 Outpost Crew Rotations.

1 Outpost resupply sortie (unmanned).

Falken

 

Six months on the north pole of the Moon. Now that's a consumation devoutly to be wished...

[SCFalken]

Anyone care to guess how the demise of the STS and the rise of the Orion-based program will shift the demographic makeup of the Astronaut Corps?

 

I'm guessing it will likely seriously cut the % of military Astronauts, especially the Aviation-sourced Pilot/Commander types. Unless you have an applicable scientific degree, you aren't going. Especially on the Lunar missions. They aren't going to spend 1/4 of the available crewspace on a guy who is only useful when they aren't actually on the Moon. The need for a dedicated pilot in the CEV is not clear, and even the Lunar Lander is likely to not need one (might make more sense to train the bulk of the Astronaut Corps to pilot the Lander).

 

That goes even more for the Mars expeditions.

 

 

 

Falken

[Jim Martin]

Do we need to install one of those breathalyzer starter thingies on the Shuttle flight controls?

 

Panel Finds Astronauts Flew While Intoxicated

 

A panel reviewing astronaut health issues in the wake of the Lisa Nowak arrest has found that on at least two occasions astronauts were allowed to fly after flight surgeons and other astronauts warned they were so intoxicated that they posed a flight-safety risk.

 

The panel, also reported "heavy use of alcohol" by astronauts before launch, within the standard 12-hour "bottle to throttle" rule applied to NASA flight crew members.

[X-Files]

NASA Reports Sabotage of Flight Computer

Jul 26, 4:44 PM (ET)

By MARCIA DUNN

 

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - A space program worker deliberately damaged a computer that is supposed to fly aboard shuttle Endeavour in less than two weeks, an act of sabotage that was caught before the equipment was loaded onto the spaceship, NASA said Thursday.

 

The unidentified employee, who works for a NASA subcontractor, cut wires inside the computer that is supposed to be delivered to the international space station by Endeavour, said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's space operations chief. The worker also damaged a similar computer that was not meant to fly to space.

 

The sabotage occurred outside Florida. Gerstenmaier did not identify the subcontractor or where the damage took place.

 

NASA's inspector general office is investigating.

 

NASA hopes to fix the computer and launch it Aug. 7 as planned aboard Endeavour. The computer is designed for use aboard the space station, not the shuttle, and the damage would have posed no danger to either shuttle or station astronauts, Gerstenmaier said.

 

SCULLY: Why would somebody want to sabotage the Space Shuttle?

 

MULDER: Well, if you were a terrorist, there probably isn't a more potent symbol of American progress and prosperity. And if you're an opponent of big science, NASA itself represents a vast money trench that exists outside the crucible and debate of the democratic process. And, of course, there are those futurists who believe the Space Shuttle is a rusty old bucket that should be mothballed. A dinosaur spacecraft built in the 70's by scientists setting their sights on space in an ever declining scale.

 

SCULLY: And we thought we could rest easy with the fall of the Soviet Union.

 

MULDER: Not to mention certain fringe elements who accuse our government itself of space sabotage. The failure of the Hubble Telescope and the Mars Observer are directly connected to a conspiracy to deny us evidence.

 

SCULLY: Evidence of what?

 

MULDER: Alien civilizations.

 

SCULLY: Oh, of course.

[TSJ]

The German rock band Ramstein, doesn't think much of NASA or American globalization for that matter.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w9EksAo5hY...u%5Ftube%2Ehtml

[Jim Martin]

The German rock band Ramstein, doesn't think much of NASA or American globalization for that matter.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w9EksAo5hY...u%5Ftube%2Ehtml

 

Typical Euro-sniveling that their culture doesn't have the cultural dominance and appeal that ours does. Such a pity that Germany didn't succeed in her big push to export her ideals of National Socialism 60 years ago--to make things worse, they were stopped by those crass, commercialist, Coca-Cola and Santa Claus pushing cowboys, the Amerikaner.

[SCFalken]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ex...l=la-home-local

 

Explosion at Scaled Composites. Two dead, so far.

 

 

 

Falken