4 ms·

This is even worse than it sounds. Long periods in zero gravity impair astronauts' immune system. Astronauts experience skin rashes and upper respiratory symp

by nabla9 3y ago

This is even worse than it sounds. Long periods in zero gravity impair astronauts' immune system. Astronauts experience skin rashes and upper respiratory symptoms from mild to difficult during long-duration spaceflights. New bacteria in a closed environment with immune-compromised people can be life threatening if they can't get back to the Earth. Pneumonia in space could kill. Gravity is used to clear lungs. Postural drainage https://www.physio-pedia.com/Postural_Drainage https://www.physio-pedia.com/Postural_Drainage positions help to keep lungs clear. Astronauts drowning in their own fluids one after another would kill long range manned missions for NASA.

lupusreal 3y ago
It seems easy to prevent a disease found on the ISS from infecting deep space missions; just don't link the two up. Maybe those other missions will develop their own strains in time, but with fewer people coming and leaving it should be easier to keep the spacecraft clean and healthy by starting out that way. Also the ISS has been occupied for 23 years with this issue only becoming apparent recently, so that seems like a pretty good run.
- nabla9 3y ago
  ISS is not special. Strains found on earth did not evolve into drug resistant variants. E. bugandensis is multi-drug resistant resistant on Earth variants too. You can use quarantine to guard against many virus infections, but bacteria that always gets into space with humans is persistent threat. It's annoying when near Earth, but Mars missions must learn how to deal with emergencies.
  - dogtorwoof 3y ago
    I do wonder about cosmic radiation and it’s ability to cause mutations to DNA. Could be part of the reason why there’s increased resistance.
- nabla9 3y ago
  It seems that microgravity itself increases resistance. Bacteria show enhanced growth, increased virulence, higher resistance to antibiotics, and increased biofilm formation in microgravity. https://theconversation.com/as-if-space-wasnt-dangerous-enough-bacteria-become-more-deadly-in-microgravity-141053 https://theconversation.com/as-if-space-wasnt-dangerous-enou...
MichaelZuo 3y ago
It does seem like artificial gravity is absolutely necessary for long-term missions...
- exe34 3y ago
  I wonder if a small scale centrifuge (think hospital bed on an office chair) could be useful to flush out the liquid content of the lungs every few hours?
  - rtkwe 3y ago
    Space is a big issue, to subject the person's whole body to the force in the same direction you'd need it to be at least 2x larger around than the tallest person you're going to send through it which AFAIK isn't possible anywhere on the ISS at the moment. BEAM may have had just enough space before it was converted to a cargo module.
    - exe34 3y ago
      That's why I was suggesting just an office chair and a hospital gurney - to flush out the lungs, you probably don't need to worry about making the whole person experience uniform spin gravity, just shake it out of the lungs!
      - rtkwe 3y ago
        You could maybe have them kneel on a spinning platform instead but I think you would still want their head on the same side of the rotation axis as their feet for example. Also I wonder how long you'd need to do this to allow the body to properly clear the built up fluids.
      - airstrike 3y ago
        Vomit Comet 2000: now with extra phlegm!
- seydor 3y ago
  It does seem like we need to take a page from those wise bacteria: You can't survive in space without genetic modification
zanfr 3y ago
I doubt it is about gravity; it is also about the horrifying air quality on the ISS
- echelon 3y ago
  We evolved to fit the environment of our gravity well like a glove. There's a lot that just doesn't work optimally without the envelope of gas exchange, temperature ranges, nutrient inputs, and standard gravity we have on earth. This is why I find the idea of humans colonizing the galaxy ridiculous. It won't happen unless we change our bodies substantially. We're just animals. Animals fit to the conditions of earth. (But quite honestly, it'll likely be machine intelligences that inherit the stars instead of us with our biological shortcomings.)
  - op00to 3y ago
    I think we are within grasping range of genetic engineering humans to eliminate a lot of the more “interesting” bits of biology, but we are waiting for the commercial requirements to be there before really making things happen.
    - jessetemp 3y ago
      How do you genetically engineer a resistance to fluid in the lungs, or radiation exposure, or whatever all the other interesting ways to die in space are? Imagine all the suffering caused by failed attempts, people living their whole life with bad lungs so a privileged few can get a little closer to their space fantasy. I wouldn't want to be born into that experiment
  - api 3y ago
    Space stations need spin gravity for long duration use. As far as living on other planets goes: there is gravity. What we don't know is how much gravity we need. We could answer this with a space station with spin gravity by trying different rotational velocities and monitoring the health effects. The Moon has about 1/6 Earth gravity. Is that enough? We don't know. Mars has a little over 1/3. Long duration space flight probably needs spin gravity too. There are two ways to do it. One is a torus shaped spacecraft. The other is two spacecraft and a tether where once they insert themselves into their cruise transfer orbit they link, extend the tether, and start orbiting each other in a spin configuration. People could go between the ships if necessary by following the tether, though this would probably only be done when strictly necessary due to the risks. There's a calculator online for spin gravity based on what we currently know about human tolerance for the Coriolis effect: https://www.artificial-gravity.com/sw/SpinCalc/ https://www.artificial-gravity.com/sw/SpinCalc/ It's not too bad. There are various workable sweet spots. Playing around I find one at 20 meter radius and 0.66g (2/3) gravity. It looks like you can't get much smaller than 15 meters diameter without ill effects, but we actually don't know. We need to try this to see what humans can actually adjust to. The simplest test short of a centrifugal station would be to put two capsules or Starships in orbit and tether them and experiment with different tether lengths and rotational velocities. Edit: actually there's a third way to do gravity on long duration flights. If you watched/read The Expanse you saw it. Accelerate to the midpoint, flip, decelerate to the destination. Unfortunately that requires insane physicsts' nightmare propulsion systems like the fusion engines in The Expanse that we do not have and won't have for the foreseeable future unless there are some crazy fusion breakthroughs.

by nabla9 3y ago

lupusreal 3y ago

It seems easy to prevent a disease found on the ISS from infecting deep space missions; just don't link the two up. Maybe those other missions will develop their own strains in time, but with fewer people coming and leaving it should be easier to keep the spacecraft clean and healthy by starting out that way. Also the ISS has been occupied for 23 years with this issue only becoming apparent recently, so that seems like a pretty good run.

nabla9 3y ago
ISS is not special. Strains found on earth did not evolve into drug resistant variants. E. bugandensis is multi-drug resistant resistant on Earth variants too. You can use quarantine to guard against many virus infections, but bacteria that always gets into space with humans is persistent threat. It's annoying when near Earth, but Mars missions must learn how to deal with emergencies.
- dogtorwoof 3y ago
  I do wonder about cosmic radiation and it’s ability to cause mutations to DNA. Could be part of the reason why there’s increased resistance.
nabla9 3y ago
It seems that microgravity itself increases resistance. Bacteria show enhanced growth, increased virulence, higher resistance to antibiotics, and increased biofilm formation in microgravity. https://theconversation.com/as-if-space-wasnt-dangerous-enough-bacteria-become-more-deadly-in-microgravity-141053 https://theconversation.com/as-if-space-wasnt-dangerous-enou...

MichaelZuo 3y ago

It does seem like artificial gravity is absolutely necessary for long-term missions...

exe34 3y ago
I wonder if a small scale centrifuge (think hospital bed on an office chair) could be useful to flush out the liquid content of the lungs every few hours?
- rtkwe 3y ago
  Space is a big issue, to subject the person's whole body to the force in the same direction you'd need it to be at least 2x larger around than the tallest person you're going to send through it which AFAIK isn't possible anywhere on the ISS at the moment. BEAM may have had just enough space before it was converted to a cargo module.
  - exe34 3y ago
    That's why I was suggesting just an office chair and a hospital gurney - to flush out the lungs, you probably don't need to worry about making the whole person experience uniform spin gravity, just shake it out of the lungs!
    - rtkwe 3y ago
      You could maybe have them kneel on a spinning platform instead but I think you would still want their head on the same side of the rotation axis as their feet for example. Also I wonder how long you'd need to do this to allow the body to properly clear the built up fluids.
    - airstrike 3y ago
      Vomit Comet 2000: now with extra phlegm!
seydor 3y ago
It does seem like we need to take a page from those wise bacteria: You can't survive in space without genetic modification

zanfr 3y ago

I doubt it is about gravity; it is also about the horrifying air quality on the ISS

echelon 3y ago
We evolved to fit the environment of our gravity well like a glove. There's a lot that just doesn't work optimally without the envelope of gas exchange, temperature ranges, nutrient inputs, and standard gravity we have on earth. This is why I find the idea of humans colonizing the galaxy ridiculous. It won't happen unless we change our bodies substantially. We're just animals. Animals fit to the conditions of earth. (But quite honestly, it'll likely be machine intelligences that inherit the stars instead of us with our biological shortcomings.)
- op00to 3y ago
  I think we are within grasping range of genetic engineering humans to eliminate a lot of the more “interesting” bits of biology, but we are waiting for the commercial requirements to be there before really making things happen.
  - jessetemp 3y ago
    How do you genetically engineer a resistance to fluid in the lungs, or radiation exposure, or whatever all the other interesting ways to die in space are? Imagine all the suffering caused by failed attempts, people living their whole life with bad lungs so a privileged few can get a little closer to their space fantasy. I wouldn't want to be born into that experiment
- api 3y ago
  Space stations need spin gravity for long duration use. As far as living on other planets goes: there is gravity. What we don't know is how much gravity we need. We could answer this with a space station with spin gravity by trying different rotational velocities and monitoring the health effects. The Moon has about 1/6 Earth gravity. Is that enough? We don't know. Mars has a little over 1/3. Long duration space flight probably needs spin gravity too. There are two ways to do it. One is a torus shaped spacecraft. The other is two spacecraft and a tether where once they insert themselves into their cruise transfer orbit they link, extend the tether, and start orbiting each other in a spin configuration. People could go between the ships if necessary by following the tether, though this would probably only be done when strictly necessary due to the risks. There's a calculator online for spin gravity based on what we currently know about human tolerance for the Coriolis effect: https://www.artificial-gravity.com/sw/SpinCalc/ https://www.artificial-gravity.com/sw/SpinCalc/ It's not too bad. There are various workable sweet spots. Playing around I find one at 20 meter radius and 0.66g (2/3) gravity. It looks like you can't get much smaller than 15 meters diameter without ill effects, but we actually don't know. We need to try this to see what humans can actually adjust to. The simplest test short of a centrifugal station would be to put two capsules or Starships in orbit and tether them and experiment with different tether lengths and rotational velocities. Edit: actually there's a third way to do gravity on long duration flights. If you watched/read The Expanse you saw it. Accelerate to the midpoint, flip, decelerate to the destination. Unfortunately that requires insane physicsts' nightmare propulsion systems like the fusion engines in The Expanse that we do not have and won't have for the foreseeable future unless there are some crazy fusion breakthroughs.