Astronauts could run round 'Wall of Death' to keep fit on moon, say scientists | Hacker News Reader

Astronauts could run round 'Wall of Death' to keep fit on moon, say scientists

theguardian.com

52 pointsbeardyw38 comments

This is pretty cool, but what really excites me is the possibility of inventing entirely new sports that only work in low gravity.

Now, I'm an adrenaline junkie myself, so it might be best if I leave the actual inventing of those sorts to someone else. Most of my ideas come with rather high risk of injury, which might not be great when you're on the moon

It doesn't even require creativity - I think many existing sports would be fun in low gravity. Basketball with extremely tall hoops. Tennis on a massive court. Not to mention golf.

Well, running on a flat surface is kinda hard in low g, so I guess you'd have to make some adjustments for that. But yeah basketball where players jump to the ceiling and then push of from the ceiling towards the floor could be quite crazy.

I'm kinda thinking handball would be insane, tho I wouldn't wanna be the goalie

Slamball would be a sight, that's all I can say.

Lunar no-atmo base jumping. See Mons Huygens as few have.

This is either suicide with extra steps, or loads of fun!

The line between those 2 is surprisingly thin!

Flying with wings strapped to your arms! Not outside on the moon of course, but could maybe work in a cave or building pumped full of air. I remember reading about that in some scifi novel long ago.

Randall Munroe did a what-if entry about swimming pools on the moon, and swim-jumping would be wild. If you have fins, you could do dolphin jumps several meters above the water!

One of my probably-not-safe-enough ideas was to combine underwater rugby with above water rugby, and perhaps even aerial rugby! A couple of strategically placed moderately sized fans in an indoor sports hall, where part of the floor is a deep pool and part is not(or perhaps with floating platforms in the pool?) a goal on each end of the field and a mixture of players: some with fins, and others with wings

I mean tackling eachother will probably be good at keeping bone density high, though I'm not sure how hard it is to treat a probably inevitable fracture on the moon?

Closest I can recall is Arthur C. Clarke's "3001: The Final Odyssey". People strapped on wings, flapped their arms, and that was enough to fly.

Alternatively, in "Rendesvousz With Rama", he envisioned a human-powered flying bike. IIRC, a foldable sports bike with wings and a propeller.

> “Blood flow restriction exercise has been shown in studies on Earth to give similar muscle, bone and cardiorespiratory training benefits normally seen during higher intensity exercise, at much lower exercise intensities and durations,” Caplan said.

Interesting, where can I learn more about putting this into practice?

I wonder if it is related to 'voodoo flossing tape', which is latex tape that is tightly wound around an injured joint. After exercising the tape is removed and this somehow seems to aid in healing, though it's not clear how it works.

I’ve read of a Japanese body building practice that involves using a blood pressure cuff to restrict the dispersal of blood. The muscle marinates in its metabolic waste, which has an anabolic effect. Don’t know what they do for muscles in the torso.

https://www.outsideonline.com/health/running/you-should-prob...

> Don’t know what they do for muscles in the torso.

Nothing, I guess? All the articles I have found only refer to arms and legs. Restricting blood flow in the torso would be difficult (not to mention pretty dangerous), so the method probably can't be applied there...

Immediately a new startup emerges, with wirelessly controlled shunts in arteries, controlled by smart phones, for this very purpose. During a PST timezone change bug, all the founders and initial investors die at the precise same time, where the shunts activate for one hour as they slumber.

Searching for BFR will uncover resources for this style of exercise as it's common in physiotherapy and bodybuilding.

Just a note though: avoid the bodybuilding "bro science", there is an established method to calibrating BFR that doesn't merely involve putting wraps around the arm or leg and hoping for the best. The main harm is cutting off too much blood flow by using a cuff that is either on for too long or can gather in a way that progressively cuts off circulation during the movement.

The core advantage of BFR is one can use a lighter weight to achieve similar results, which can improve the surrounding conditions of your limbs (joints/tendons), it is no less tiring or strenuous(on the muscle) than regular exercise.

Look up 'zone 2' training, especially in cycling and running.

Wouldn't a cone work better, so that your normal force is perpendicular to the surface that you're running on? You'd have to calibrate the angle of the cone to a specific running speed, but other than that, it seems like a cone would be much easier to use.

In that vein, maybe some sort of parabolic shape will allow you to run at varying speeds?

Like this https://www.autoweek.com/racing/formula-1/a36365588/60-degre...

It would also allow you to stop safely!

Could have just watched "2001: A Space Odyssey" for inspiration :P

It seems like the gerbil wheel is an old sci Fi trope.

Is the novelty of us that it's sideways?

Yes: on Earth I imagine this isn't possible (the required centrifugal force to generate the friction needs you to be travelling much faster than a human can run), though I haven't done any calculations.

> on Earth I imagine this isn't possible

Only if you use a vertical wall as the "floor".

If you set the "floor" at, say, 45deg, and then spin the centrifuge up enough so that the floor feels level, you could practice running at √2g (~1.4g). Then vary the floor angle and centrifuge speed for various g levels while running on what feels like a level surface.

Also here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40230988

Here's the wall of death with proper motorcycle action on the Oktoberfest:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qctNreP3J0w

Couldn’t they use a heavy weighted outfit? Add a couple hundred kg of gear and you’d get a solid workout on the same plane. Feels like you could make a treadmill that is smaller than the wall of death.

That extra mass would also increase inertia, making it a different exercise.

And I think they already do treadmill sessions with elastic bands to simulate weight on the ISS. I guess it is already a default for a moon base.

Why not use a harness with resistance cables that you can hook up in different directions or a bar. This way pull ups, dead lifts, etc. would be possible.

They were already doing it on Skylab: https://youtu.be/qiMq-fdRhLo

Yes, also Dave Bowman was running around the habitat cylinder for exercise in 2001 A Space Odyssey.

The difference here is that there is proper gravity on the moon. Your speed is enough to keep you up.

> I’m amazed that nobody had the idea before,

Kubrick ghost is going to haunt this guy. That's literally a smaller version of the giant ring in 2001.

It’s good to see that there are simple solutions still left to discover

Only a little disappointed the header video isn’t Colin Furze’s wall of death built out of pallets. Still, using the lower gravity to your advantage without requiring mechanical leverage is a very cost and energy efficient approach to enabling exercise.

They'll need to get there first...

Seems obvious that people have to be at a place to do things there.

Not at all, remote telepresence could work. Though the 2500ms ping would be killer.

Yeah, so far no company has built a crewed moon lander. The space suits are also a big problem.

Or no country, you'll be waiting awhile for a company unless they can grab it and some how lease the moon to the whole planet.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com