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Nobody can even come up with a coherent reason for any of these proposals to exist. Even the ISS is more of a political instrument than a real science thing.

Nobody can even come up with a coherent reason for any of these proposals to exist. Even the ISS is more of a political instrument than a real science thing. NASA likes to say its about studying how to help humans live in space, but those results were in decades ago: more than a few months in zero-g wrecks people. So why are we still trying to build old modular Salyut/Mir derivatives instead of trying to figure out the minimum spin humans need to stay healthy? Because the whole point is to do familiar safe things while providing full time jobs for ground control.

metalman 7mo ago
Right! And because China has a good chance of pulling of a moon and then mars landing first, they are lurching into, hmmmm,ok,they are lurching flat out trying to bluster up a program without disturbing the space grift industry, ie: SLS , Shuttle Leftover Systems and the whole thing disolves into cringe
- Muromec 7mo ago
  Disbanding NASA would be one of those symbolic things thay people will associate the dusk of American empire.
  - readthenotes1 7mo ago
    Nah. It will probably be either the Space Shuttle or Artemis. That is to say, programs that showed NASA lost control of its mission to graft
  - pfdietz 7mo ago
    Avoiding something for such symbolic reasons is negative cargo cult thinking.
    - Supermancho 7mo ago
      > Avoiding something [disbanding NASA] for such symbolic reasons [???] is negative cargo cult thinking. Cargo-cult requires a rigid through-line. What criteria would you use, to choose to avoid something in order to preemptively avoid hindsight analysis? It's a nonsensical line of thinking.
      - pfdietz 7mo ago
        Cargo cult requires a confusion of cause and effect. Airplanes carrying cargo didn't land because there was a control tower; they landed because of prior causes that also caused the construction of a control tower. And here, the US does not decline because of some symbolic action, but rather decline causes the action. This confusion of cause and effect is literally a kind of magical thinking.
        mikkupikku 7mo ago
        You're broadly right, but I think you're missing the part where perception of reality feeds back into reality, e.g. through economic effects. Demoralized Americans with less hope for the future stop caring, stop trying, and this in turn hastens that same decline.
        pfdietz 7mo ago
        I think that's just an untestable rationalization.
    - Muromec 7mo ago
      You are right and I don't think it should be avoided. It's just that, a symbolic milestone of sorts. A cutoff date.
ACCount37 7mo ago
I agree that a "long term fractional g spin test" is one of the most valuable things a LEO station can do. But there are others too. For example, medical interventions against zero-g decay can be tested in any microgravity, spin or no spin. Development of in-space manufacturing and assembly can happen on any sufficiently capable space station. All of that, however, requires a good amount of ambition. And I'm not sure if NASA under the current political system can deliver ambition.
- le-mark 7mo ago
  > For example, medical interventions against zero-g decay This seems obvious but I’ve never heard of anyone working on a drug to address it. Strapping astronauts to a treadmill yes, pills no.
  - MagicMoonlight 7mo ago
    Because that’s like saying you’ll develop a fuel additive to stop the body from rusting. Physical damage and weakness can’t be stopped by a pill.
    - avmich 7mo ago
      Seems like a very broad statement. Do you have anything to confirm this opinion?
      - Rumudiez 7mo ago
        Do you have any grounds to deny it? If it were easy it would have been done already
        avmich 7mo ago
        No, but I'm not making a statement.
    - mrits 7mo ago
      "Physical damage and weakness can’t be stopped by a pill." If you rephrase that to correct English then it would make sense. We aren't trying to stop physical damage or weakness we are trying to prevent it from happening. Pills can prevent many things that cause this.
Havoc 7mo ago
At risk of crassness - human lives are pretty cheap and there are plenty of people willing to take the hit for a chance to be in space for an extended timeframe. Meanwhile building something with enough spin and shielding is a huge ask
- maxerickson 7mo ago
  If manned stations aren't doing any particularly unique research, especially research that couldn't be done with automation, why spend huge resources on them?
  - __patchbit__ 7mo ago
    Horses for courses micromanagement business administration and lobbying gravy train.
  - Havoc 7mo ago
    I'd be very surprised if they're genuinely out of research ideas to test in space. If that is actually true then humanity has a problem. >research that couldn't be done with automation I'd think there is room for both. Automation makes sense, but don't think the versatility of meatbags is entirely there yet.
    - gus_massa 7mo ago
      > if they're genuinely out of research ideas to test in space A bigger problem is lack of expertise. Astronauts are not specialist in whatever is the topic of the current experiment. You need probably like 5 years of training (assume the second half of the undergraduate degree, and perhaps the first half of the PhD). So experiments must be fully automated except for a button to turn they on and off.
      - maxerickson 7mo ago
        Lots of research has technicians doing the actual experimental tasks, your argument would benefit from even a short list of experiments that have not been done because astronauts couldn't be expected to handle it.
idiotsecant 7mo ago
Nobody cares about ground control. They care about aerospace industry in their states. Public space programs aren't about science and engineering, no they are primarily about jobs. We burn enormous capital in strange ways in order to divert a small amount of capital into useful places. Its the only way to get it done, so I can live with it.
- mikkupikku 7mo ago
  Senators care about ground control. Jobs is the whole reason any of them agree to fund NASA at all.
  - avmich 7mo ago
    NASA is the goverment agency routinely favored by the general public. They can't meaningfully reduce funding, now that "race to space" with China is heating up.
    - mikkupikku 7mo ago
      Most of the public don't know there's another space race and would probably tell you that Artemis is a new brand of deodorant or something. Senators don't care about space fans, they just want NASA to be a consistent reliable jobs program that doesn't throw any curve balls (hence NASA's [nominal attempts to have a] low tolerance for risk.)
      - avmich 7mo ago
        Unlike other government agencies, space fans are electorally meaningful number of people, as far as I know. Wait till China start scoring firsts with manned Moon expeditions and journalists start explaining that Senate not caring, and situation will get interesting, uncomfortably so.
aaron695 7mo ago
[dead]
somenameforme 7mo ago
Extended space spays doesn't really wreck people, it's just that your body adjusts to the new environment so your strength decrease, your bone density decreases, your orientation mechanisms shift to 6 degrees of freedom, and so on. Of course when you get back to Earth you're body again has to go through a readjustment phase because those previous adjustments are now unfit for the new environment, but it's nothing beyond that. It'd be interesting to see what an extremely long stay of like a decade+ would do, but that's a major ask of anybody not only in time commitment but also because it's basically asking whether or not the transition would be fatal, and the answer is unclear. As for a spinning station, that's something NASA will probably never do. They're extremely risk averse and you're opening up an unknowable, but very large, number of new possible failure scenarios there - many of them likely catastrophic. If anything that's something of an argument for genuine private stations who may have different levels of risk tolerance. Or we can just wait for China, because they'll 100% do it and probably relatively soon.
- rcxdude 7mo ago
  It's not just adjustment, there's a decent amount of evidence it's just bad for your health in general, apart from the issues when coming back to earth. Stuff like your circulation also gets messed up.
  - rzerowan 7mo ago
    To expand on that - there are many body systems that depend almost entirely on the 1g glodilocks zone. Lymphatic systems movt , venous blood returning deox blood to the heart and even some digestive processes. Keenly dependent on a g value that allows proper muscle tone/function to the systems at play. Too little or too much and and human life becomes non-viable. Throw in the effect of ping ponging between microgravity and 1g and the issues multiply.
  - somenameforme 7mo ago
    I'm active in this topic and have never heard anything similar to what you've mentioned. And in looking this up, there's a very recent study [1] that's quite relevant. They studied the cardiovascular health of astronauts for 5 years after their return from long-duration stays on the ISS. They were all perfectly healthy. [1] - https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/japplphysiol.00264.2024 https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/japplphysio...

metalman 7mo ago

Right! And because China has a good chance of pulling of a moon and then mars landing first, they are lurching into, hmmmm,ok,they are lurching flat out trying to bluster up a program without disturbing the space grift industry, ie: SLS , Shuttle Leftover Systems and the whole thing disolves into cringe

Muromec 7mo ago
Disbanding NASA would be one of those symbolic things thay people will associate the dusk of American empire.
- readthenotes1 7mo ago
  Nah. It will probably be either the Space Shuttle or Artemis. That is to say, programs that showed NASA lost control of its mission to graft
- pfdietz 7mo ago
  Avoiding something for such symbolic reasons is negative cargo cult thinking.
  - Supermancho 7mo ago
    > Avoiding something [disbanding NASA] for such symbolic reasons [???] is negative cargo cult thinking. Cargo-cult requires a rigid through-line. What criteria would you use, to choose to avoid something in order to preemptively avoid hindsight analysis? It's a nonsensical line of thinking.
    - pfdietz 7mo ago
      Cargo cult requires a confusion of cause and effect. Airplanes carrying cargo didn't land because there was a control tower; they landed because of prior causes that also caused the construction of a control tower. And here, the US does not decline because of some symbolic action, but rather decline causes the action. This confusion of cause and effect is literally a kind of magical thinking.
      - mikkupikku 7mo ago
        You're broadly right, but I think you're missing the part where perception of reality feeds back into reality, e.g. through economic effects. Demoralized Americans with less hope for the future stop caring, stop trying, and this in turn hastens that same decline.
        pfdietz 7mo ago
        I think that's just an untestable rationalization.
  - Muromec 7mo ago
    You are right and I don't think it should be avoided. It's just that, a symbolic milestone of sorts. A cutoff date.

ACCount37 7mo ago

I agree that a "long term fractional g spin test" is one of the most valuable things a LEO station can do. But there are others too. For example, medical interventions against zero-g decay can be tested in any microgravity, spin or no spin. Development of in-space manufacturing and assembly can happen on any sufficiently capable space station. All of that, however, requires a good amount of ambition. And I'm not sure if NASA under the current political system can deliver ambition.

le-mark 7mo ago
> For example, medical interventions against zero-g decay This seems obvious but I’ve never heard of anyone working on a drug to address it. Strapping astronauts to a treadmill yes, pills no.
- MagicMoonlight 7mo ago
  Because that’s like saying you’ll develop a fuel additive to stop the body from rusting. Physical damage and weakness can’t be stopped by a pill.
  - avmich 7mo ago
    Seems like a very broad statement. Do you have anything to confirm this opinion?
    - Rumudiez 7mo ago
      Do you have any grounds to deny it? If it were easy it would have been done already
      - avmich 7mo ago
        No, but I'm not making a statement.
  - mrits 7mo ago
    "Physical damage and weakness can’t be stopped by a pill." If you rephrase that to correct English then it would make sense. We aren't trying to stop physical damage or weakness we are trying to prevent it from happening. Pills can prevent many things that cause this.

Havoc 7mo ago

At risk of crassness - human lives are pretty cheap and there are plenty of people willing to take the hit for a chance to be in space for an extended timeframe. Meanwhile building something with enough spin and shielding is a huge ask

maxerickson 7mo ago
If manned stations aren't doing any particularly unique research, especially research that couldn't be done with automation, why spend huge resources on them?
- __patchbit__ 7mo ago
  Horses for courses micromanagement business administration and lobbying gravy train.
- Havoc 7mo ago
  I'd be very surprised if they're genuinely out of research ideas to test in space. If that is actually true then humanity has a problem. >research that couldn't be done with automation I'd think there is room for both. Automation makes sense, but don't think the versatility of meatbags is entirely there yet.
  - gus_massa 7mo ago
    > if they're genuinely out of research ideas to test in space A bigger problem is lack of expertise. Astronauts are not specialist in whatever is the topic of the current experiment. You need probably like 5 years of training (assume the second half of the undergraduate degree, and perhaps the first half of the PhD). So experiments must be fully automated except for a button to turn they on and off.
    - maxerickson 7mo ago
      Lots of research has technicians doing the actual experimental tasks, your argument would benefit from even a short list of experiments that have not been done because astronauts couldn't be expected to handle it.

idiotsecant 7mo ago

Nobody cares about ground control. They care about aerospace industry in their states. Public space programs aren't about science and engineering, no they are primarily about jobs. We burn enormous capital in strange ways in order to divert a small amount of capital into useful places. Its the only way to get it done, so I can live with it.

mikkupikku 7mo ago
Senators care about ground control. Jobs is the whole reason any of them agree to fund NASA at all.
- avmich 7mo ago
  NASA is the goverment agency routinely favored by the general public. They can't meaningfully reduce funding, now that "race to space" with China is heating up.
  - mikkupikku 7mo ago
    Most of the public don't know there's another space race and would probably tell you that Artemis is a new brand of deodorant or something. Senators don't care about space fans, they just want NASA to be a consistent reliable jobs program that doesn't throw any curve balls (hence NASA's [nominal attempts to have a] low tolerance for risk.)
    - avmich 7mo ago
      Unlike other government agencies, space fans are electorally meaningful number of people, as far as I know. Wait till China start scoring firsts with manned Moon expeditions and journalists start explaining that Senate not caring, and situation will get interesting, uncomfortably so.

aaron695 7mo ago

[dead]

somenameforme 7mo ago

Extended space spays doesn't really wreck people, it's just that your body adjusts to the new environment so your strength decrease, your bone density decreases, your orientation mechanisms shift to 6 degrees of freedom, and so on. Of course when you get back to Earth you're body again has to go through a readjustment phase because those previous adjustments are now unfit for the new environment, but it's nothing beyond that. It'd be interesting to see what an extremely long stay of like a decade+ would do, but that's a major ask of anybody not only in time commitment but also because it's basically asking whether or not the transition would be fatal, and the answer is unclear. As for a spinning station, that's something NASA will probably never do. They're extremely risk averse and you're opening up an unknowable, but very large, number of new possible failure scenarios there - many of them likely catastrophic. If anything that's something of an argument for genuine private stations who may have different levels of risk tolerance. Or we can just wait for China, because they'll 100% do it and probably relatively soon.

rcxdude 7mo ago
It's not just adjustment, there's a decent amount of evidence it's just bad for your health in general, apart from the issues when coming back to earth. Stuff like your circulation also gets messed up.
- rzerowan 7mo ago
  To expand on that - there are many body systems that depend almost entirely on the 1g glodilocks zone. Lymphatic systems movt , venous blood returning deox blood to the heart and even some digestive processes. Keenly dependent on a g value that allows proper muscle tone/function to the systems at play. Too little or too much and and human life becomes non-viable. Throw in the effect of ping ponging between microgravity and 1g and the issues multiply.
- somenameforme 7mo ago
  I'm active in this topic and have never heard anything similar to what you've mentioned. And in looking this up, there's a very recent study [1] that's quite relevant. They studied the cardiovascular health of astronauts for 5 years after their return from long-duration stays on the ISS. They were all perfectly healthy. [1] - https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/japplphysiol.00264.2024 https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/japplphysio...