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shadowkat1. My total news blockage - does allow for drippings to leak through.
From "The New Yorker Daily" (the New Yorker is celebrating it's 100th anniversary this year - so I'm subscribing to it and with my subscription - I got a nifty tote bag to add to the hundred other tote bags in my every expanding collection of tote bags - who knew the 21st Century would be into tote bags?).
Here's a snippet regarding Space Travel by Dhruv Khullar (he's a physician and contributing writer to The New Yorker):
"In what’s being called “the second space age,” many observers have been focussing on the technological progress that appears to be transforming spaceflight into a commodity, but, as a doctor, I am fascinated by the question of what space travel does to the human body.
In a recent study sponsored by NASA, a team of researchers compared the astronaut Scott Kelly, who spent nearly a year on the International Space Station, with his identical twin, Mark Kelly, who stayed on Earth. The scientists identified some changes that you’d expect—in space, Scott’s muscles had atrophied, and he got two inches taller—but many of their findings were more unusual: his vision deteriorated; the bacteria in his gut shifted in composition; and the functioning of thousands of his genes had been altered. When Scott returned, markers of inflammation in his blood shot to levels that laboratory tests had trouble measuring, prompting one researcher to ask, “How did he survive?”
Only two dozen people—the Americans who crewed the Apollo missions—have ever exited Earth’s low orbit, and only for less than two weeks at a time. A mission to Mars, which both the U.S. and China are reportedly considering for the twenty-thirties, could last years. For my piece in this week’s Anniversary Issue, I travelled to a remote part of Utah to visit the Mars Desert Research Station, a facility that offers a rough approximation of life on the Red Planet, complete with space suits, air locks, rovers, and a two-story cylindrical habitat. It was one of the strangest places I have ever visited—and, yet, it was also infinitely more familiar than anything that the first humans on Mars will experience. “I simply don’t think we can extrapolate from shorter missions to longer missions,” a researcher told me. “These are biological systems. At some point, they may just run out of the ability to compensate.”
I looked at the full article briefly and I think I also have it in print, so will read later. It basically states that humans can not travel long distances in space and survive.
"The NASA Twins Study had to contend with a fundamental challenge of space research: sample size. A scholar of diabetes or breast cancer might analyze data from hundreds of thousands of patients; Kelly is just one person, and the effects of space travel for different individuals may vary as widely as the effects of a COVID infection. Even so, patterns are emerging. Studies of the Inspiration4 crew detected genetic modifications in immune cells, changes to the organization of DNA, and spikes in inflammation (although not to the level that Kelly had exhibited). Women seemed to experience milder changes than men, a finding that earlier studies had also reported. Throughout the crew’s bodies, there were markers of oxidative stress, which is often inflicted when radiation damages proteins and DNA. And, during flight, the crew had experienced temporary cognitive declines that affected their attention and their working memory.
Most of these health effects eventually faded, the research team wrote in Nature last year, but a small number—certain forms of damage to DNA, for example—didn’t even appear until after the crew’s return to Earth. Other effects, including abnormalities in mitochondria, persisted for the six months that the team studied them. “The body is adapting to an unusual and complex environment in unusual and complex ways,” Mason told me. “We’re starting to see a biological signature of space. Soon, we’ll be able to say, This is what will happen to you if you get a three-day dose of space. That is what will happen with a three-month dose.” The microorganisms that coexist with humans changed, too. Biopsies revealed a rise in the number of viruses on the skin; mouth and gut bacteria shifted in composition. A bacterium that causes dental plaque formed a defensive biofilm around itself, helping it to multiply and persist. (Bacteria can become more virulent and resistant to antibiotics in space.)
There was still much to learn, but a plausible story was emerging. “Space is a foreign environment for the human species,” Basner told me. “We grew up here on Earth. All of our biology and physiology evolved around its features.” Our bodies are calibrated to Earth’s atmosphere and microbiome. We’re used to specific levels of gravity and radiation; when spaceflight subtracts the former and multiplies the latter, numerous complex systems are thrown out of balance. The researchers who studied the Kelly brothers concluded that human health could be “mostly sustained” during a year in orbit. But they could not predict how much these risks would increase during a longer mission, such as a voyage to Mars. Perhaps the dangers would grow slowly and steadily; perhaps they would grow exponentially. “I simply don’t think we can extrapolate from shorter missions to longer missions,” Basner said. “These are biological systems. At some point, they may just run out of the ability to compensate.” A “short” round-trip Mars mission, which would pose unprecedented technical and medical challenges, could leave the safety of orbit for two years or more. Astronauts would also have to withstand life on another planet.
Once upon a time, the core of Mars, made of nickel and iron, used to spin. This generated a magnetic field similar to the one around Earth, which produced a robust atmosphere that retained heat, blocked radiation, and may even have fostered liquid water. But, possibly because Mars is only about half the size of Earth, its molten core cooled and solidified. Today, the planet hardly has a magnetic field; most of its atmosphere has leaked into space, and its surface is pummelled by solar and galactic radiation. The average temperature is negative eighty degrees Fahrenheit. For all these reasons, a permanent settlement there would likely require terraforming—a deceptively simple word for the monumental task of literally making a habitable planet out of thin air. One approach would involve freeing greenhouse gases from Mars’s rocks, thickening the atmosphere and prompting the type of warming that Earth is currently experiencing."
Interesting article - will have to read more of it.
2. Apparently there's such a thing as Galentine's Day? From New Yorker Daily: " I had never heard of Galentine’s Day before I was asked to write for this newsletter. But I am intrigued by the idea of Saint Galentine, patron saint of unromantic love. In my mind, she has a reckless laugh and a withering eye and beautiful, tangled hair. She is dressed in all the nice clothes I’ve taken from my friends. "
I'm feeling lonely, disconnected and friendless at the moment, as if I'm adrift in the ether. It's partly due to lack of sleep, and a bad case of the February Uglies resulting in general crankiness. I envy people who fall asleep quickly and deeply.
3. Speaking of space travel? I'm still reading this delightfully odd duck of a mystery/sci-fi hybrid about a mystery writer, who has escaped to a space station run by aliens to avoid humans. Murders have a frightening tendency to happen wherever she goes. She started writing best-selling mystery novels about the real life murders she solved to make a living.
But lost family, friends, etc - because of the murders. Which aren't her fault.
What's interesting is the alien life forms - which are wasps, rocks that evolve into spaceships, a sentient space station and it's walking stick (like the insectoid walking stick) symbiote. In fact most of the aliens have symbiotic relationships and don't understand why humans don't.
In this universe - aliens pop up on earth, and visit it like a tourist destination and to vacation, much to the annoyance of the humans living there. No, you giant rock like things, you cannot enter this museum, you may crush everything in it.
Hee. I'm rather delighted by it. It's called Eternity Station: the Midsolar Murders, Book #1.
Also, it's hard to fault a book whose main characters prefer Octavia Butler and Parable of the Sower over Kurt Vonnegurt and Slaughter-House Five.
Off to make dinner, watch my soap opera, and hopefully get to bed early tonight.
From "The New Yorker Daily" (the New Yorker is celebrating it's 100th anniversary this year - so I'm subscribing to it and with my subscription - I got a nifty tote bag to add to the hundred other tote bags in my every expanding collection of tote bags - who knew the 21st Century would be into tote bags?).
Here's a snippet regarding Space Travel by Dhruv Khullar (he's a physician and contributing writer to The New Yorker):
"In what’s being called “the second space age,” many observers have been focussing on the technological progress that appears to be transforming spaceflight into a commodity, but, as a doctor, I am fascinated by the question of what space travel does to the human body.
In a recent study sponsored by NASA, a team of researchers compared the astronaut Scott Kelly, who spent nearly a year on the International Space Station, with his identical twin, Mark Kelly, who stayed on Earth. The scientists identified some changes that you’d expect—in space, Scott’s muscles had atrophied, and he got two inches taller—but many of their findings were more unusual: his vision deteriorated; the bacteria in his gut shifted in composition; and the functioning of thousands of his genes had been altered. When Scott returned, markers of inflammation in his blood shot to levels that laboratory tests had trouble measuring, prompting one researcher to ask, “How did he survive?”
Only two dozen people—the Americans who crewed the Apollo missions—have ever exited Earth’s low orbit, and only for less than two weeks at a time. A mission to Mars, which both the U.S. and China are reportedly considering for the twenty-thirties, could last years. For my piece in this week’s Anniversary Issue, I travelled to a remote part of Utah to visit the Mars Desert Research Station, a facility that offers a rough approximation of life on the Red Planet, complete with space suits, air locks, rovers, and a two-story cylindrical habitat. It was one of the strangest places I have ever visited—and, yet, it was also infinitely more familiar than anything that the first humans on Mars will experience. “I simply don’t think we can extrapolate from shorter missions to longer missions,” a researcher told me. “These are biological systems. At some point, they may just run out of the ability to compensate.”
I looked at the full article briefly and I think I also have it in print, so will read later. It basically states that humans can not travel long distances in space and survive.
"The NASA Twins Study had to contend with a fundamental challenge of space research: sample size. A scholar of diabetes or breast cancer might analyze data from hundreds of thousands of patients; Kelly is just one person, and the effects of space travel for different individuals may vary as widely as the effects of a COVID infection. Even so, patterns are emerging. Studies of the Inspiration4 crew detected genetic modifications in immune cells, changes to the organization of DNA, and spikes in inflammation (although not to the level that Kelly had exhibited). Women seemed to experience milder changes than men, a finding that earlier studies had also reported. Throughout the crew’s bodies, there were markers of oxidative stress, which is often inflicted when radiation damages proteins and DNA. And, during flight, the crew had experienced temporary cognitive declines that affected their attention and their working memory.
Most of these health effects eventually faded, the research team wrote in Nature last year, but a small number—certain forms of damage to DNA, for example—didn’t even appear until after the crew’s return to Earth. Other effects, including abnormalities in mitochondria, persisted for the six months that the team studied them. “The body is adapting to an unusual and complex environment in unusual and complex ways,” Mason told me. “We’re starting to see a biological signature of space. Soon, we’ll be able to say, This is what will happen to you if you get a three-day dose of space. That is what will happen with a three-month dose.” The microorganisms that coexist with humans changed, too. Biopsies revealed a rise in the number of viruses on the skin; mouth and gut bacteria shifted in composition. A bacterium that causes dental plaque formed a defensive biofilm around itself, helping it to multiply and persist. (Bacteria can become more virulent and resistant to antibiotics in space.)
There was still much to learn, but a plausible story was emerging. “Space is a foreign environment for the human species,” Basner told me. “We grew up here on Earth. All of our biology and physiology evolved around its features.” Our bodies are calibrated to Earth’s atmosphere and microbiome. We’re used to specific levels of gravity and radiation; when spaceflight subtracts the former and multiplies the latter, numerous complex systems are thrown out of balance. The researchers who studied the Kelly brothers concluded that human health could be “mostly sustained” during a year in orbit. But they could not predict how much these risks would increase during a longer mission, such as a voyage to Mars. Perhaps the dangers would grow slowly and steadily; perhaps they would grow exponentially. “I simply don’t think we can extrapolate from shorter missions to longer missions,” Basner said. “These are biological systems. At some point, they may just run out of the ability to compensate.” A “short” round-trip Mars mission, which would pose unprecedented technical and medical challenges, could leave the safety of orbit for two years or more. Astronauts would also have to withstand life on another planet.
Once upon a time, the core of Mars, made of nickel and iron, used to spin. This generated a magnetic field similar to the one around Earth, which produced a robust atmosphere that retained heat, blocked radiation, and may even have fostered liquid water. But, possibly because Mars is only about half the size of Earth, its molten core cooled and solidified. Today, the planet hardly has a magnetic field; most of its atmosphere has leaked into space, and its surface is pummelled by solar and galactic radiation. The average temperature is negative eighty degrees Fahrenheit. For all these reasons, a permanent settlement there would likely require terraforming—a deceptively simple word for the monumental task of literally making a habitable planet out of thin air. One approach would involve freeing greenhouse gases from Mars’s rocks, thickening the atmosphere and prompting the type of warming that Earth is currently experiencing."
Interesting article - will have to read more of it.
2. Apparently there's such a thing as Galentine's Day? From New Yorker Daily: " I had never heard of Galentine’s Day before I was asked to write for this newsletter. But I am intrigued by the idea of Saint Galentine, patron saint of unromantic love. In my mind, she has a reckless laugh and a withering eye and beautiful, tangled hair. She is dressed in all the nice clothes I’ve taken from my friends. "
I'm feeling lonely, disconnected and friendless at the moment, as if I'm adrift in the ether. It's partly due to lack of sleep, and a bad case of the February Uglies resulting in general crankiness. I envy people who fall asleep quickly and deeply.
3. Speaking of space travel? I'm still reading this delightfully odd duck of a mystery/sci-fi hybrid about a mystery writer, who has escaped to a space station run by aliens to avoid humans. Murders have a frightening tendency to happen wherever she goes. She started writing best-selling mystery novels about the real life murders she solved to make a living.
But lost family, friends, etc - because of the murders. Which aren't her fault.
What's interesting is the alien life forms - which are wasps, rocks that evolve into spaceships, a sentient space station and it's walking stick (like the insectoid walking stick) symbiote. In fact most of the aliens have symbiotic relationships and don't understand why humans don't.
In this universe - aliens pop up on earth, and visit it like a tourist destination and to vacation, much to the annoyance of the humans living there. No, you giant rock like things, you cannot enter this museum, you may crush everything in it.
Hee. I'm rather delighted by it. It's called Eternity Station: the Midsolar Murders, Book #1.
Also, it's hard to fault a book whose main characters prefer Octavia Butler and Parable of the Sower over Kurt Vonnegurt and Slaughter-House Five.
Off to make dinner, watch my soap opera, and hopefully get to bed early tonight.
no subject
Date: 2025-02-14 01:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-02-14 01:33 am (UTC)Per various space exhibits, museums, this article and others - the biggest challenge with space travel is how you compensate for living a low-gravity situation for an extended period of time. Also, how do you come back to earth, after that? Would you even be able to walk?
There's so many factors.
I read some of the science behind it - while researching a sci-fi novel - and realized that if you travel for any length of time in space - you can't return to Earth effectively or go on planet - the gravity is too different. You wouldn't be able to walk. It's kind of akin to being underwater - deep in the ocean for a lengthy period of time - you get the bends. But going from 0 gravity to high gravity - ugh.
I find it interesting - because we think it's not a big deal - but it is. William Shatner finally went into space - and freaked out. He basically stated that he came to the realization that Earth is all we have - that there is nothing in space and there is no way we can find another planet to inhabit, it's not possible.