It's like bungee jumping. You know that the rubber band might break. It's like climbing Everest. You know that you might run out of oxygen & stroke out, or slip off a rock face and roll through shat before the hard, fatal, or unrescue-able landing. It's like taking a canoe over the Chain of Rocks knowing your chances are slim. It's like being a fighter pilot -- when the cockpit seals you know it could be the last time it does. But you do it for the glory and the accolades and to be a cut above.
So.. the futurist want to have AI and self driving cars and machinery here.. but people in the harsh environment of space? That's backwards.. My futurist vision is robots and AI in space.. supervised by technicians in a round (ball shaped) facility in geocentric orbit around Earth from which they rotate down to a park like Earth for R&R.
Technicians who operate mining equipment and eat pizza rolls (LOL) it would look much like they were playing video games. The ball shape of the facility is to provide gravity on many floors.
There is just no need for it.. if private enterprise wants actual human beings to travel the solar system.. fine. the logistics for robots is so much easier , a much lighter load, and the robots can even be build from materials harvested from asteroids and other bodies, so lighter payloads can be sent further into the solar system. At present there is no evidence that speeds approaching light are possible with solid material.. UFOs (if they are alien to our planet) would seem to operate interdimensionally.. no record of one entering the atmosphere has be recorded .. has it?
We actually know a lot due to the ISS. However what we've learned has been very discouraging. So much so that I've changed my mind on the possibility of long term space habitation. NASA Twins Study Verifies Long-Term Health Effects of Space Travel
My understanding is that protection from radiation by use of water requires a one or two meter thickness. That's a lot of water. While water is useful even as a source of fuel, it's also incredibly heavy and expands when frozen. Plus, if it gets used for something else then it's no longer available for shielding. Maybe water would be only one component or only depended upon during the outbound trip. There are ideas of making a "magnetosphere" around the ship. I have no idea how much energy that would require. We can all come up with sources of mass or energy for surrounding the humans for radiation protection. But, that doesn't mean there is an actual engineering solution that fits with launch capability, length of trip, etc, etc.
You don't need to surround a large area with the water though. Just enough to create a so called "storm cellar" for the crew during times of elevated solar activity.
Yes - and good cite. Unfortunately, it's a demonstration that we're still learning how much protection of various kinds is required. I'm wondering what the psych folks are thinking about having a tiny number of humans locked inside a small tube for the minimum of a year. Surely they won't have the room or activities available in the ISS.
The radiation from deep space is serious. There is a constant stream of particles out there flying around at energies that we can't create even in a modern superconducting supercollider. There needs to be significant protection throughout the trip - plus more if there is a solar storm.
We have a record of nuclear subs that stay submerged for months at a time, so it's a starting point. I actually think the psychological aspects are easier to handle than the physiological ones.
Perhaps we should distinguish between “cannot” vs “we have no reason to incur the expense at this time”. I suspect that we could figure out how to colonize mars if it were “really important” to us.... which it is not. As an example: we went to the moon fifty years ago. But we have not gone back, let alone colonized the moon. That has not happened because there was not much reason to go to the moon other than proving that we “could” do it. But now that we know that we can do it, we have to come up with a reason why we should do it again
That may be why some pilot does it. But, it isn't why our military does it. And, the military and other citiznes do care about pilot lives - even if the pilot doesn't.
Interesting point. That does seem reasonably similar, though my bet is that there is less to do while coasting along in space for months.
Mars should never be considered a stopping point, but a short sojourn to something sustainable. Colonizing Mars would be a human failing, because it would still require so much aid from Earth. Our goals need to be finding places to move that can actually sustain populations entirely on their own. Granted we should at least put something on Mars, but only as a temporary station, not permanent living...
22 years. And I never heard of that, and I went through MCRD in 1983. And an appendectomy still required a waiver. Just as ADD does.
Well allow me to show you. http://www.recruitparents.com/bootcamp/wisdom-teeth.asp http://recruitparents.com/bootcamp/complete-care.asp If your son is lucky, they'll pull his wisdom teeth. Every recruit is evaluated on a case by case basis. Pulling them after they hit the operating forces is too late; he should be learning how to kill the enemy and not taking rest days for dental surgery. Recruits get plenty of medication and time off after getting their wisdom teeth pulled. Their "agony" is kept to a minimum in recruit training, since learning to deal with hardship, pain, and loss is something they'll never experience in combat.