The syndrome impairing astronauts’ eyesight
washingtonpost.com
The syndrome impairing astronauts’ eyesight
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Re: The syndrome impairing astronauts’ eyesight
#2It will not prevent travel to Mars. It's effects can likely be countered. Perhaps by artificial gravity.
Re: The syndrome impairing astronauts’ eyesight
#3It will not prevent travel to Mars. It's effects can likely be countered. Perhaps by artificial gravity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gravity
Not everyone is ready to admit it yet, but IMO there is no long term future for us in space without something like artificial gravity.
I remember back in the 1970s one of the Skylab astronauts came to my college to give a talk. I had read about some problems, so I asked him about the effects of prolonged weightlessness. He was very dismissive, he vehemently denied that there could be any problems at all.
As they say, denial isn't just a river in Egypt. And the denial has been going on for many many decades.
Re: The syndrome impairing astronauts’ eyesight
#4It will not prevent travel to Mars. It's effects can likely be countered. Perhaps by artificial gravity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gravity
Not everyone is ready to admit it yet, but IMO there is no long term future for us in space without something like artificial gravity. I remember back in the 1970s one of the Skylab astronauts came to my college to give a talk. I had read about some problems, so I asked him about the effects of prolonged weightlessness. He was very dismissive, he vehemently denied that there could be any problems at all. As they say,…
> He was very dismissive, he vehemently denied that there could be any problems at all.
We exist as we do because of the pressures our environment exhibits on us (e.g. gravity)- outside of hubris I can't imagine why folks would think weightlessness would have zero impact.
Re: The syndrome impairing astronauts’ eyesight
#5It will not prevent travel to Mars. It's effects can likely be countered. Perhaps by artificial gravity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gravity
Not everyone is ready to admit it yet, but IMO there is no long term future for us in space without something like artificial gravity. I remember back in the 1970s one of the Skylab astronauts came to my college to give a talk. I had read about some problems, so I asked him about the effects of prolonged weightlessness. He was very dismissive, he vehemently denied that there could be any problems at all. As they say,…
I am not aware of research on how much gravity is needed to maintain a healthy environment. For example, it is possible that an body as light as Pluto (with only .06 Gs) would offset the majority of the effects of low gravity. If this is the case, then permantant bases on Moons/Planets would face little issues from micro-gravity concerns. If humans require closer to 1G to remain healthy, then these bases become more difficult.
We have already demonstrated that humans can stay in space for over a year while remaining relativly healthy. Further, we can achieve artificial "gravity" with centrifugal force if we needed to.
Additionally, we could also attempt to solve the problem through medical science, and treat the effects of micro-gravity instead of outright preventing it.
Re: The syndrome impairing astronauts’ eyesight
#6It will not prevent travel to Mars. It's effects can likely be countered. Perhaps by artificial gravity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gravity
I really don't understand why NASA has never done experiments for creating gravity in space. We know how we could make it work.
Re: The syndrome impairing astronauts’ eyesight
#7It will not prevent travel to Mars. It's effects can likely be countered. Perhaps by artificial gravity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gravity
I really don't understand why NASA has never done experiments for creating gravity in space. We know how we could make it work.
They have, technically, on Gemini 11 they produced 0.00015g of "gravity".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_11
I do wish they would try again with modern technology.
Re: The syndrome impairing astronauts’ eyesight
#8It will not prevent travel to Mars. It's effects can likely be countered. Perhaps by artificial gravity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gravity
Not everyone is ready to admit it yet, but IMO there is no long term future for us in space without something like artificial gravity. I remember back in the 1970s one of the Skylab astronauts came to my college to give a talk. I had read about some problems, so I asked him about the effects of prolonged weightlessness. He was very dismissive, he vehemently denied that there could be any problems at all. As they say,…
Artificial gravity is easy. You "just" spin things.
The tricky bit is being able to launch enough mass to build something safe and comfortable to spin; there's a limit to how small you can make your spinning habitat before the difference between "centrifugal force" and gravity is too pronounced for our long term comfort. That's part of why making it cheaper to launch per unit mass is so important. If we could put ten times the mass in space for the same price, the ISS would probably look quite different.
I'm of the same opinion as you in general; what spending years in zero-g has proved is that it's not long-term viable. There's too many ways in which it is not viable to expect us to be able to fix all of them, when indeed it's not clear we can fix any of them with drugs or anything short of massive genetic engineering. We don't know how much gravity is necessary, though I'm inclined to guess closer to .5G than .05G. Once you get enough mass in space, though, that's not really that difficult.
Re: The syndrome impairing astronauts’ eyesight
#9It will not prevent travel to Mars. It's effects can likely be countered. Perhaps by artificial gravity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gravity
Yes, Zubrin has been advocating for this since 1990.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UChuIqIKF4&t=1722
His explanation about the real situation with NASA and why the human spaceflight program has not accomplished anything is extremely disheartening.
Re: The syndrome impairing astronauts’ eyesight
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not everyone is ready to admit it yet, but IMO there is no long term future for us in space without something like artificial gravity. I remember back in the 1970s one of the Skylab astronauts came to my college to give a talk. I had read about some problems, so I asked him about the effects of prolonged weightlessness. He was very dismissive, he vehemently denied that there could be any problems at all. As they say,…
> He was very dismissive, he vehemently denied that there could be any problems at all. We exist as we do because of the pressures our environment exhibits on us (e.g. gravity)- outside of hubris I can't imagine why folks would think weightlessness would have zero impact.
>We exist as we do because of the pressures our environment exhibits on us (e.g. gravity)- outside of hubris I can't imagine why folks would think weightlessness would have zero impact.
Skylab 2, 3 and 4 specifically tried to study the effects of space habitation on the human body. I seem to remember reading that the later Skylab crews were considered to be in better health when they came back than when they left. Even though it was early, it could explain the dismissiveness. The data at the time might have made it seem that we'd figured it out already.