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People have lived in zero g for a year at a time, without significant health impact. The SpaceX proposed transit of three months is a quarter of that. These y
by marze 10y ago
People have lived in zero g for a year at a time, without significant health impact. The SpaceX proposed transit of three months is a quarter of that.
These year long stays were on the space station, which has similar or less shielding. The Earth's magnetic field helps, but really, by the time you get to your Mars habitat with unlimited shielding mass available, your total dose is not that high.
- maxerickson 10y agoThere's all sorts of concerns after a year in space. http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/1/11138102/scott-kelly-year-in-space-health-effects-return-to-earth http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/1/11138102/scott-kelly-year-i... I guess they aren't well characterized yet.
- marze 10y agoRisks are relative. Early travelers will face very significant risks. Radiation and zero g are indeed risks, but a minor compared to the other risks.
- maxerickson 10y agoRisks are relative. is a very different calculation than People have lived in zero g for a year at a time, without significant health impact.
- marze 10y agoDifferent, but both true. If you have a 5% of dying in transit or at Mars due to equipment failure, as well as a 2% increased chance of getting cancer at some time in the future, the first obviously is the one to worry about.
- M_Grey 10y agoIt's going to be dangerous enough on Mars, without adding those factors in. Worse, it's going to be difficult if the person who dies is in a critical position. You would have some redundancy in personnel, but that's costly in terms of Delta-v too, for them, and for everything it takes to keep them alive.
- Symmetry 10y agoThe effects are really pretty bad after a year and significant even after 6 months with exercise. That's why it was so important to get the transit time down to 3 months.
- pmoriarty 10y agoI've always wondered why there haven't been any efforts to generate artificial gravity via spinning spacecraft ala 2001. Have there ever been any serious plans or proposals to do that?
- Pinckney 10y agoNautilus-X was pretty serious. You really want a pretty large diameter so that you don't have a huge gravity gradient causing your astronauts discomfort. Tethers might be more practical than the classical doughnut designs for the near future.
- Symmetry 10y agoJAXA recently brought up a small wheel into the ISS that can be used to simulate varying levels of spin on mice. Research into .4G gravity is particularly important if we're going to be sending people to Mars, but in general if lower levels of gravity keep mice and people happy those'll be easier to generate on future spacecraft.