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NASA remains silent on why crew went to hospital after dragon splashdown

gizmodo.com

131–140 of 166 posts

Re: NASA remains silent on why crew went to hospital after dragon splashdown

#131
post #61

This is exactly the kind of headline that would appear 20 minutes into a B-rate sci-fi movie. As we approach Act II, an intrepid young journalist rushes to the hospital to find out what’s really going on… But wait, who is in the black car trailing her?

Seems like the link on HN was changed from the original which had a more movie-worthy headline.

Re: NASA remains silent on why crew went to hospital after dragon splashdown

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is assuming intent that has never been reflected in action.

Are you sure you're not just projecting your own assumptions about him? The ones you need to have to justify your apparent hatred of him?

Re: NASA remains silent on why crew went to hospital after dragon splashdown

#133
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gizmodo used to be owned by Gawker which went bankrupt due to a lawsuit brought on because they didn't care about a famous person's privacy. So this seems par for the course.

Gawker went bankrupt, because a public figure who felt that he was outed failed to win a lawsuit against them, so bankrolled someone else's lawsuit, with many questions unanswered. Public figure, because Courts have ruled that billionaires are public figures due to their "outsized influence on government and public policy". Outed by Gawker, despite his social media at the time regularly featuring photos of him shirtl…

The reason Hogan won the lawsuit against Gawker is because they shared a video and story that was not newsworthy, and unfairly invaded a person's privacy.

Gawker fucked up, and had a history of fucking up in this exact way, without being held accountable. I think they absolutely deserved to get shut down.

Did Thiel take advantage of the situation for the purposes of revenge? Most likely! But at the end of the day, Gawker abused their position and paid the price.

I feel no regret that Gawker is gone. They were a piece of shit tabloid.

Re: NASA remains silent on why crew went to hospital after dragon splashdown

#136
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

It's been studied in the past (NERVA, et al.), and does seem to offer a specific-impulse advantage in the extremely high temperatures achievable by routing propellant through the reactor core. (So-called "closed-cycle" systems heat reaction mass outside a fairly conventional primary coolant loop; "open-cycle" doesn't have a coolant loop, but rather ejects hot coolant directly as reaction mass. There was also a nuclear-powered cruise missile design, I think called "Project Pluto," on this theme, although not directly related and so far as I know only studied in theory.)

It does of course still require reaction mass, but theoretical efficiency seems higher than other feasible systems; it wasn't really explored much in the old days due to the general post-Apollo builddown, and also due to the concerns of radioactive debris in case of mishap and radioactive exhaust if the system were used as a launch motor. (If not used to launch, it would need some orbital assembly and a lot of heavy lift, given not least the massive shielding required for remotely survivable crewed use.)

Another fission-based propulsion system, not relying on a steady-state reaction, was also studied under the name "Project Orion." I'll leave that one as a diversion for the interested reader, mainly because it seems unlikely anyone not already familiar would believe a word of any description I could give.

Re: NASA remains silent on why crew went to hospital after dragon splashdown

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Instea…

The denotation is correct, but the connotation is wrong. Most people go by connotations, so I disagree with your statement that "speakers would normally call..."

Re: NASA remains silent on why crew went to hospital after dragon splashdown

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a few breaths I've sometimes gotten a whiff of a toxic fume, and my instant reaction is to hold my breath and leave the area. Not inhale a few breaths. I'm sure the astronauts are fit enough they could hold their breath long enough to get the helmet on. After all, I expect they probably have a lot of training in getting the helmet on fast. There are many emergencies that would require this, such as rapid decompress…

If it's excess methane, you won't sense it. This is why municipal gas has a smell agent added. The same cannot be done for space fuel. If it's hydrazine, it is about as smelly as gasoline but ammonia, I think, but the toxic dose is below the smell threshold. So no, you do not get to generalize here.

Then install a methane gas detector which a siren. So yeah, I do get to generalize.

Re: NASA remains silent on why crew went to hospital after dragon splashdown

#139
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow really? This could be a huge market for rich people who need a beach body within 3 months. Ozempic + a vacation in space could be a game changer for them.

Lose weight while floating sedately...sounds good to me

A lot of the weight loss is likely to be in muscle and bone mass. It’s extremely difficult to work out in zero-G.

Re: NASA remains silent on why crew went to hospital after dragon splashdown

#140

Does anyone know: If deep sea divers need to come back to the surface slowly so their bodies can reacclimate to standard pressure, do astronauts undergo a similar reacclimation process as it pertains to gravity?

The issue with divers is that the extra pressure forces nitrogen bubbles deep into their tissues. If they then come up to surface pressure too quickly, the nitrogen bubbles will essentially "explode" out of their tissues and damage them.

So no, this is an entirely different problem.

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