141–150 of 183 posts
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But parents do that all the time with babies. It is disgusting (I hated doing it) but you get somewhat used to it relatively quickly.
We seem to make a disconnect with our own children. I certainly did. But it doesn't extend to even other people's kids!
I think it's a question of exposure and tolerance, otherwise it'd be much harder for daycare workers, for instance.
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I mean this has also been a problem for fighter pilots as well. The "piddle packs" for F-16 pilots are implicared at least one crash due to the complexity of using them. [1] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-03-23-me-542-st...
Forget about pee, I always wondered about fighter pilots in one of those long, multi-hour flights, what happens if they really need to go number 2? I suppose they self-select as people without this kind of problems, but it can happen to anyone really. I suppose in an emergency they just shit their pants, but I wonder what the ground crew says when they touch down.
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Apollo was largely driven with the purpose of achieving the goal rather than obsessing on the details on the way to that goal. In fact during Apollo they even completely scrapped mathematical risk modeling because the results it always gave were basically 'you die.' So for instance a relevant and famous anecdote is that the original tests for Apollo launches didn't have any sort of urine/fecal disposal systems at all…
> In fact during Apollo they even completely scrapped mathematical risk modeling because the results it always gave were basically 'you die.' In hindsight we know, that these models were wrong. people were better at predicting risks without relying on formal models. I mean, people were not perfect too, but still they were better. I wonder, if modern engineering has better tools for risk modeling and how good they wor…
The number of near misses and actual deaths in the Apollo programme loosely indicate the models were right. We just had to up our risk threshold to make the Moon with the era’s technology.
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I gauge the seriousness of all manned space exploration proposals by the attention paid to the toilets. If the toilets are not a solved problem with many nines of reliability, you're just writing science function and are not at all serious about actual manned space exploration. Toilets are the brown M&M clause[0] of manned spaceflight proposals. Toilets are unglamorous in the extreme but absolutely vital. Humans make…
Speaking of this: let’s talk about space settlement. If you’re going to stay, you are going to be having babies. Any tech tree proposal for a space settlement (planet, moon, spin stations, whatever) that does not address how to make and reuse or recycle diapers is not serious. I never see this mentioned in sci-fi or in space nerd discourse around stuff like what you need to settle Mars. It’s up there with potable wat…
This is a hurdle for settlement. Not exploration. Toilets are a hurdle for exploration, as is trauma medicine.
I’m not dismissing the need to do experiments with pregnant rats on the Moon. But until we’re dealing with multi-year missions on Mars, gestation isn’t on the Gantt chart.
> I never see this mentioned in sci-fi
The Expanse and A City on Mars speak to this precisely and extensively.
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But parents do that all the time with babies. It is disgusting (I hated doing it) but you get somewhat used to it relatively quickly.
We seem to make a disconnect with our own children. I certainly did. But it doesn't extend to even other people's kids!
And people say there's no innovation in the Artemis stack
From what I've read, the crew capsule really is all-new and very different from previous NASA capsules. However the engines and other launch stuff is just reused old stuff or a little modernized (SRS main engines + SRBs).
Which is good enough. The breakthrough propulsion is happening for Artemis III at the SpaceX and Blue Origin shipyards.
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I’ve always wanted to be an astronaut, but yeah… pass. Weird a silicon-like pants that strapped up so there was no leaks (like fisherman’s pants), that has a vacuum you attach (almost catheter style) isn’t used. Actually now that I think about it, it’s weird that astronauts aren’t using catheters 24/7!
I mean this has also been a problem for fighter pilots as well. The "piddle packs" for F-16 pilots are implicared at least one crash due to the complexity of using them. [1] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-03-23-me-542-st...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Forget about pee, I always wondered about fighter pilots in one of those long, multi-hour flights, what happens if they really need to go number 2? I suppose they self-select as people without this kind of problems, but it can happen to anyone really. I suppose in an emergency they just shit their pants, but I wonder what the ground crew says when they touch down.
Honestly this isn't something people select for at all--by the time you've made it through that many rounds of selection you aren't going to let GI issues keep you from the finish. I've heard of some creative solutions to the problem involving safing the ejection seat and getting out of your gear, but I don't really believe any of them. If you think it's a significant risk, you basically have two options: talk to the…