NASA remains silent on why crew went to hospital after dragon splashdown
gizmodo.com
gizmodo.com
As we approach Act II, an intrepid young journalist rushes to the hospital to find out what’s really going on… But wait, who is in the black car trailing her?
https://blogs.nasa.gov/commercialcrew/2024/10/25/nasa-provid...
The next day NASA announced "The crew member is in good health and will resume normal post-flight reconditioning with other crew members."
https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2024/10/26/nasas-spacex-...
The scary part is while the bones/muscles can be healed over time, the eyesight problems persist and appear to be irreversible.
They have to solve this before trips to Mars will be possible, unless they are going to simulate gravity by constantly (slowly) accelerating half-way there and then slowly decelerating. It's technically plausible but a million other little problems have to be solved too. Won't happen in the lifetime of anyone alive right now.
Classically, the way to mitigate the medical problems of long microgravity exposure is by giving the spacecraft a rotating section, which produces enough centrifugal "down" to mostly satisfy human physiology. I understand the engineering problem involved there to be fairly severe in its own right, but most likely soluble given an established orbital manufacturing industry amply supplied by heavy lift from Earthside.
Another option might be to cable a pair of spacecraft together and spin them about their common barycenter, as I believe has been done with satellites in a few cases. Perhaps this will serve to improve the economics of Martian convict labor by increasing survival rates of transportees, while the English travel first class aboard luxury liners with spin gravity and nightly zero-G cabaret.
I think the dual spacecraft with a long cable is really the only practical option, since you get far too much coriolis for it to be bearable otherwise. Remains to be seen if they can make it work with two spacex starships though.
[1]: Cargo can fly cheaper & slower, not worry about radiation exposure.
(the engine development would also have to advance obviously but not implausible)
It does of course still require reaction mass, but theoretical efficiency seems higher than other feasible systems; it wasn't really explored much in the old days due to the general post-Apollo builddown, and also due to the concerns of radioactive debris in case of mishap and radioactive exhaust if the system were used as a launch motor. (If not used to launch, it would need some orbital assembly and a lot of heavy lift, given not least the massive shielding required for remotely survivable crewed use.)
Another fission-based propulsion system, not relying on a steady-state reaction, was also studied under the name "Project Orion." I'll leave that one as a diversion for the interested reader, mainly because it seems unlikely anyone not already familiar would believe a word of any description I could give.
Has that now changed or is it still just fantasy?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VTVL.
Lots of things to be worried about for a Mars trip, landing probably isn't really one of them.
The moon has an average orbital velocity of 1km per sec (approx)
Mars is 24km per sec (approx) Terminal velocity is 600ms, on earth it's 54ms
So we are talking about something that is an order of magnitude more difficult. I think if retro rockets are to be used then far more fuel will be needed. But that means far more mass, which means more fuel - how much fuel would be needed to slow something like Starship for example?
edit to add: These spacecraft all use very toxic fuels, and this one has had issues with fuel leaks before [0]. I'm not sure how or if those could affect the crew. Maybe if there was contamination on an exterior surface, they could have been exposed on landing? IIRC it is or used to be standard procedure to take air samples before opening crewed spacecraft, for this reason.
edited again to add: I found it! It Apollo-Soyuz in 1975—the entire Apollo crew were poisoned by fuel when they opened the spacecraft, and were hospitalized with chemical pneumonitis [1,2].
[0] https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/06/nasa-delays-cargo-dr... ("NASA and SpaceX stand down on Dragon launch to study hydrazine issue")
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo–Soyuz#Re-entry_and_afte...
[2] https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19770023791 ("The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project: Medical report")
- (wiki) "The only serious problem was during reentry and splashdown of the Apollo craft, during which the crew were accidentally exposed to toxic monomethylhydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide fumes, caused by unignited reaction control system (RCS) hypergolic propellants venting from the spacecraft and reentering a cabin air intake. The RCS was inadvertently left on during descent, and the toxic fumes were sucked into the spacecraft as it drew in outside air. Brand briefly lost consciousness, while Stafford retrieved emergency oxygen masks, put one on Brand, and gave one to Slayton. The three astronauts were hospitalized for two weeks in Honolulu, Hawaii.[22] Brand took responsibility for the mishap; because of high noise levels in the cabin during reentry, he believed he was unable to hear Stafford call off one item of the reentry checklist, the closure of two switches which would have automatically shut off the RCS and begun drogue parachute deployment. These procedures were manually performed later than usual, allowing the ingestion of the propellant fumes through the ventilation system.[23]"
I've sometimes gotten a whiff of a toxic fume, and my instant reaction is to hold my breath and leave the area. Not inhale a few breaths.
I'm sure the astronauts are fit enough they could hold their breath long enough to get the helmet on. After all, I expect they probably have a lot of training in getting the helmet on fast. There are many emergencies that would require this, such as rapid decompression, fire, smoke, etc.
I don't know if the astronauts do this or not, but if I was reentering, I'd put the helmet on anyway. It's only for a few minutes.
So no, you do not get to generalize here.
Science tells us there is no value in making up possiblities, but that we must start from observation.
- "Normally, once medical personnel complete their preliminary assessment, crews are flown to shore on a helicopter, then board a NASA airplane for the flight back to Houston. Instead, the Crew-8 astronauts were taken to the hospital Friday morning."
Nonsense. If that were the case, they'd be shouting it to everyone and NASA would never again be underfunded.
Can't see why it wouldn't be.
The conflict of course is that the point of sending astronauts to space is to learn about the medical effects of the space environment on human bodies.
Basically they are participating in a very expensive publicly funded medical trial. So the goals of that need to be balanced against their privacy.
I’m not advocating that NASA should publish high resolution pictures of astronauts with puke stained shirts. But they could say “one of the astronauts experienced symptomps commonly associated with intense motion sickness which started after disembarking the vehicle” or “one of the astronauts had intense headaches” or whatever describes the situation.
If the astronauts are not okay with that level of transparency they should pay for their flight with their own money. Is my opinion.
At the same time I imagine this issue is something extremely mundane... which makes the lack of transparency and resulting media stir even more grating.
edit: love the answers, but would rather party.
Gizmodo: fuck their privacy!!
Public figure, because Courts have ruled that billionaires are public figures due to their "outsized influence on government and public policy".
Outed by Gawker, despite his social media at the time regularly featuring photos of him shirtless on gay cruises. Good for him, but "outed" was a bit of a stretch.
I have many issues, not with Hogan's lawsuit, but Thiel's bankrolling of it:
Hogan had already reached a tentative deal with Gawker, including a percentage of profits and partial ownership.
When Thiel's paying the bills, and some of attorneys are in his full-time employ, whose interests are actually primary in their mind, versus whose should be?
After his lawyers became involved, Hogan then asked for 5,000 times more, including damages that are pretty hard to account for:
Economic losses (financial loss, to be clear, NOT "emotional distreess", which they asked for separately) of $50M due to the damage of the videos release being publicized (because Gawker didn't release it, someone else did, and Hogan had settled with them for 1/1000th of what he wanted from Gawker)...
Hogan's career earnings were $15M, and his net worth at its highest was $30M, and at the time of the lawsuit, $8M. Wrestlemania would typically pay about $150K. Obviously Hogan has endorsements, but I would love to see how the fifty million number was arrived at... endorsements for hair products, and WWF reruns?
The reason I asked about lawyers and motives, because after all this was settled, Hogan/Thiel's lawyers told him to drop just one of the claims, specifically the one that would have had Gawker's insurance pay out...
... in other words, having had a deal for part ownership of the company, Hogan threw that away and asked for far more in questionable damages, and then when awarded them, then dropped the only claim that would actually have allowed him to see any real portion of those damages.
I wonder how much Thiel paid Hogan under the table. And I thought a tenet of law / justice was being able to face your accuser, not to have them launch/finance puppet lawsuits against you.
Which is how you have Hulk Hogan involved in Trump rallies.
It all goes back to Gawker...
Gawker fucked up, and had a history of fucking up in this exact way, without being held accountable. I think they absolutely deserved to get shut down.
Did Thiel take advantage of the situation for the purposes of revenge? Most likely! But at the end of the day, Gawker abused their position and paid the price.
I feel no regret that Gawker is gone. They were a piece of shit tabloid.
I have no issue with Hogan winning: "I have many issues, not with Hogan's lawsuit, but Thiel's bankrolling of it".
Thiel's lawyers seem to have talked him out of it, and in the process, talked him into withdrawing the only claim that would have gotten him the damages he sought.
Either Hogan was paid "under the table" by Thiel, which goes to my point of "facing your accuser", because you're "throwing away" a positive result for someone else's idea of a positive result, or...
Thiel and his lawyers screwed over Hogan, promoting an outcome that was more what Thiel wanted than Hogan.
But for clarity: Fuck Gawker - the world is not poorer for their loss. I just think there's several ethical questions without answers in this instance.
What makes this case different?
How is that not a victory compared to after? "A fraction of the damages, in bankruptcy" doesn't seem quite comparable.
[E] Put differently: if I were in Hogan's shoes, and was offered the choice between destroying a shitty publication that went out of their way to expose my personal life in an extremely embarrassing and entirely _not_ newsworthy way; or profiting off that same publication's continued existence? I would absolutely choose the former, because the publication's business model is the problem. Making money off the publication would be _morally_ wrong for me, once given the option of pursuing the destruction of the publication.
It costs NASA (and to be blunt about it, taxpayers) an extraordinary amount of money to put each astronaut in space. The fact is, there have been fewer than a thousand people in space in all of history. Each illness, sickness, even basic health vitals is in a sense invaluable taxpayer-funded science, and if you don't want your health to be in the public domain, there are a lot of other jobs available (or, now that we have SpaceX, you could take a private rather than government flight)
I'm not saying NASA should be publishing a livestream at the hospital, but I do think there's a reasonable expectation that NASA will release the health issues in a respectful but informative way to the public.
You don't have SpaceX. It's a private company. Soon you might not have NASA either.
As part of his payment for supporting Trump, more and more of NASA and the Department of Defense will be handed to Musk for his profit.
Oligarchs always expect to be paid.
One government agency, he said, at one point required them to do a study that estimated the chances of a re-entering rocket body impacting a gray whale in the event that it splashed down hard -- personally I agree, that is kind of ridiculous.
No, primarily Musk is frustrated with any requirement that he be accountable. Across the next four years his goals will be to reduce any accountability or transparency that applies to him and to maximize his profit.
Oligarchs always follow the same pattern.
Are you sure you're not just projecting your own assumptions about him? The ones you need to have to justify your apparent hatred of him?
Oligarchs aren't subtle or even interesting. It's remarkable how blind people are to the obvious.
Except that’s not actually what happened.
See https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/57423/did-the-u...
If you read the relevant portions of SpaceX’s submission to the FAA (link and page numbers in the link above), the FAA comes across as totally reasonable. It sounds like they were just trying to make sure that SpaceX complied with the Endangered Species Act and other related laws. That’s hardly an example of agency overreach.
I think it may have been the NOAA(?) - sorry, I don't remember exactly which agency.
The FAA has required environmental studies, but it's not the only one that has. The answer you linked to didn't look into or take into account requirements from other agencies.
For example: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/action/incidental-take-author...
But that's not the specific interaction I'm thinking of.
“At the request of the FAA, SpaceX conducted a literature review of ESA-listed endangered and threatened species with known or presumed distributions in the study area that may be affected by the proposed March 2024 13 FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation Tiered Environmental Assessment for SpaceX Starship Indian Ocean Landings activities.”
It goes on to explicitly reference the (essentially zero) risk of impacting and killing and endangered-species-listed marine mammal on splashdown. It is the interaction described above.
The Endangered Species Act is not a requirement from another agency. It’s the law. Everyone has to follow it.
Iirc, some Dragon passengers already "semi-complained" about that in the past.
Now the NASA probably has agreements with SpaceX discouraging them to speak about that kind of problems.
If deep sea divers need to come back to the surface slowly so their bodies can reacclimate to standard pressure, do astronauts undergo a similar reacclimation process as it pertains to gravity?
So no, this is an entirely different problem.
astronauts sent to psychiatric asylum after
a) confessing that earth is flat after landing. b) confessing that they landed of different version of Earth they originally departed from c) suggesting that whole time they were in simulation and spacex is fancy alien vr tech d) a new kind of virus affecting gravity particle / waves borked physics in thir legs and they can't walk normally
I would expect them to go to the hospital right away
I wonder if it's related to that. Trying to find a commonality.
This quote was interesting, not sure exactly how true it is -
"Due to changes in metabolism, astronauts consume twice as many calories as an ordinary person: just to maintain their current weight, it takes about 4 thousand calories per day. Williams, doctors suggest, will need about 5 thousand calories."
I swear I can’t be the only one who has seen Ice Pirates (1984).
You’re welcome, a classic of “bad” science fiction filmmaking, and well worth the knee jerk downvotes.
For example, if you are importing microchips, you are not self sufficient.
The extremely, wildly, super-optimistic, not gonna happen style scenario is that a few thousand people live there self-sufficiently; and my point is that, however unlikely such a scenario is, even that is nowhere close to enough, because the vast, vast majority of people would still have to deal with climate change. Moving to mars is not, and has never been, "a solution" on foreseeable time horizons.
..However, what it looks like you said is that you think NASA wants the public to believe that going to mars is a solution to climate change? Am I reading that right? If so, what makes you say that? If this was SpaceX I might've agreed, but a lot of NASA's resources are spent monitoring the climate on earth to help us tackle climate change, and I can't recall any communication from NASA about how going to mars is a near-term solution to climate change.
If I'm misreading you again, I apologize.
The reality is of course that, at least for the foreseeable future, certainly for the duration of the lives of everyone alive today, there is no back-up planet. And honestly, given how climate change is progressing, that's scary.
Some people think it is important to spread the human race beyond earth. It isn't about climate change.
Can you link to some people on this camp?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/27/elon-musk-mars-c....