Apply Occam's Razor. It could have been something as trivial (?) and embarrassing as a STD.
NASA remains silent on why crew went to hospital after dragon splashdown
121–130 of 166 posts
Re: NASA remains silent on why crew went to hospital after dragon splashdown
#122Re: NASA remains silent on why crew went to hospital after dragon splashdown
#123Could it be an initially-unnoticed chemical leak in the Crew Dragon? That could explain how it hospitalized four astronauts at once, and also why they're uncharacteristically afraid of media coverage. They were evasive in a similar way when Starliner was first having issues—they're scared of the politics, or of the lawyers. edit to add: These spacecraft all use very toxic fuels, and this one has had issues with fuel…
Only one astronaut had a medical issue, the others were taken to the hospital just in case: https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/10/astronaut-hospitalized...
Re: NASA remains silent on why crew went to hospital after dragon splashdown
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
I looked into manned Mars missions in a fit of enthusiasm 30 years or so, and I concluded that we couldn't do it because landing a human + life support on Mars requires deceleration technology we just don't have. Basically the speed of a Martian orbiter needs to be reduced to 0 or so to avoid splatting the human, but Mars' atmosphere is so thin that parachutes just don't provide the required break. Has that now chang…
Um, the moon also has no atmosphere. We were able to land on that in the 60's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VTVL . Lots of things to be worried about for a Mars trip, landing probably isn't really one of them.
But the moon is 1/9th the mass of Mars (approx)
The moon has an average orbital velocity of 1km per sec (approx)
Mars is 24km per sec (approx) Terminal velocity is 600ms, on earth it's 54ms
So we are talking about something that is an order of magnitude more difficult. I think if retro rockets are to be used then far more fuel will be needed. But that means far more mass, which means more fuel - how much fuel would be needed to slow something like Starship for example?
Re: NASA remains silent on why crew went to hospital after dragon splashdown
#125Re: NASA remains silent on why crew went to hospital after dragon splashdown
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Someone posted a scrollable web page depiction of Musk's worth a while back. The entire NASA budget is insanely small by comparison. To imagine it, I would guess he cares more about what's in his omelet than getting more money from that budget.
Musk is frustrated with government inefficiency, especially with regulatory processes. He has complained multiple times about the approval process for launches and returns. One government agency, he said, at one point required them to do a study that estimated the chances of a re-entering rocket body impacting a gray whale in the event that it splashed down hard -- personally I agree, that is kind of ridiculous.
> Musk is frustrated with government inefficiency
No, primarily Musk is frustrated with any requirement that he be accountable. Across the next four years his goals will be to reduce any accountability or transparency that applies to him and to maximize his profit.
Oligarchs always follow the same pattern.
Re: NASA remains silent on why crew went to hospital after dragon splashdown
#127Could it be an initially-unnoticed chemical leak in the Crew Dragon? That could explain how it hospitalized four astronauts at once, and also why they're uncharacteristically afraid of media coverage. They were evasive in a similar way when Starliner was first having issues—they're scared of the politics, or of the lawyers. edit to add: These spacecraft all use very toxic fuels, and this one has had issues with fuel…
Only one astronaut had a medical issue, the others were taken to the hospital just in case: https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/10/astronaut-hospitalized...
I respectfully disagree. If you are taken to a hospital for medical evaluation, speakers would normally call that a medical issue, in plain English. None of this was routine or normal precaution—a point the article you linked emphasizes:
- "Normally, once medical personnel complete their preliminary assessment, crews are flown to shore on a helicopter, then board a NASA airplane for the flight back to Houston. Instead, the Crew-8 astronauts were taken to the hospital Friday morning."
Re: NASA remains silent on why crew went to hospital after dragon splashdown
#128We already know that low-gravity causes all kinds of bone and muscle weakness and even messes with eyesight in a dramatic manner. The scary part is while the bones/muscles can be healed over time, the eyesight problems persist and appear to be irreversible. They have to solve this before trips to Mars will be possible, unless they are going to simulate gravity by constantly (slowly) accelerating half-way there and th…
A constant-acceleration flight profile would also be a lot faster for interplanetary travel, but is impractical for any known or currently plausible reaction engine: the rocket equation strikes again. Ion or Hall-effect thrusters require only electrical power and so can more or less continuously accelerate, but they produce far too little thrust to provide meaningful pseudogravity. Classically, the way to mitigate th…
Well fusion would be too exotic to be developed in this century unless there is some unbelievable breakthrough but it is very realistic that all the micro-nuclear-reactor research & development being invested into by datacenter giants now might power a spaceship someday a decade down the road?
(the engine development would also have to advance obviously but not implausible)
Re: NASA remains silent on why crew went to hospital after dragon splashdown
#129Apply Occam's Razor. It could have been something as trivial (?) and embarrassing as a STD.
Plot twist: STDs are endemic in the space station. Turns out low earth orbit is a powerful aphrodisiac, and space agencies have hid this from the general public for years. Now we know more about why billionaires are racing so urgently to get to Mars.
Re: NASA remains silent on why crew went to hospital after dragon splashdown
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
Um, the moon also has no atmosphere. We were able to land on that in the 60's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VTVL . Lots of things to be worried about for a Mars trip, landing probably isn't really one of them.
But the moon is 1/9th the mass of Mars (approx) The moon has an average orbital velocity of 1km per sec (approx) Mars is 24km per sec (approx) Terminal velocity is 600ms, on earth it's 54ms So we are talking about something that is an order of magnitude more difficult. I think if retro rockets are to be used then far more fuel will be needed. But that means far more mass, which means more fuel - how much fuel would b…
Many of the landers we've already put on Mars are heavier & less tolerant of G forces than a human, so it's clearly not an insurmountable hard limit. They use a combination of parachutes, retro rockets & airbags usually. But you're right that the lander stage has to be a small fraction of the size of the interplanetary stage, & the economics aren't very good. Maybe you'd need to send several Starships to Mars orbit to refuel & support a single one landing &/or returning to Earth -- at least until refueling facilities exist on the surface, & assuming Starship is actually capable of this mission.