US Government Issues NASA Demand - ‘Get Humans to Mars By 2033’

originally posted by: TheRedneck
a reply to: InachMarbank

I have been trying to figure out how to respond to you... this is the best I can come up with. You have asked some questions that require a background in particle physics to understand.

The phenomena you mention are caused by two things: lower density at elevation, and solar emissions. Certain types of emissions penetrate further into the atmosphere than others, and they affect atmospheric molecules in different ways. This leads to different conditions at different elevations.

You might want to verify those temperatures you mentioned, BTW. That sounds off.

TheRedneck

I assume you mean lower density at higher elevation. Are you referring to this question?

Why no nitrogen only oxygen at around 60 miles, but lots of nitrogen and oxygen at around 30 miles?

So densities get lower at higher elevation, but how does all the nitrogen get filtered out?

As mentioned, nitrogen is lighter, so you would think nitrogen would float higher than oxygen, no?

Are you saying this filtration mechanism, if I can call it that, is done by solar emissions?

As for the temperature change at certain altitudes, the information was gotten from Wikipedia.

"Thermospheric temperatures increase with altitude due to absorption of highly energetic solar radiation. Temperatures are highly dependent on solar activity, and can rise to 2,000 °C (3,630 °F)."

"In the exosphere, beginning at 500 to 1,000 kilometres (310 to 620 mi) above the Earth's surface, the atmosphere turns into space, although by the criteria set for the definition of the Karman line, the thermosphere itself is part of space.
The highly diluted gas in this layer can reach 2,500 °C (4,530 °F) during the day."

en.m.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: soficrow

lol. So which is it? Full lifetime health insurance coverage is part of the benefits package? OR... They don't need it 'cuz they already have private insurance?

You seem to be confused about how insurance actually works.

Employees get health insurance as part of their benefits package. Insurance is not provided directly by NASA. Insurance is provided by insurance companies and the policies are paid for by the employer. When one retires after a sufficient length of time, they either get enough retirement income to continue paying the group premiums, or in cases like NASA, the continued insurance is part of their retirement.

btw - A bunch of guys who sign up to go to Mars will NOT get full-time benefits when they leave NASA. It will be a limited tour of duty, and they will not qualify when their tour is up. Same problem happens with military personnel. They time out on benefits. ...And the real health effects from space flight and travel are chronic, long term.

It just don't work that way.

No one fills out an application, passes an interview, flies into space, then gets canned. Astronauts are not hired; they are promoted/appointed from within the ranks of NASA or sometimes the military. They do not just go into space; there are years of medical, psychological, and physical testing before they are even cleared to fly, and most don't pass and return to their previous duties. Then there's training... months, sometimes years just for a single mission, because they have to have education in their specialized fields, experience which is typically gained with the government before they become astronauts, and specific training for the flight conditions and equipment they will be using. That's years of preparation. Then there's the flight itself, which lasts at least for a few months, more like a few years to get to Mars and back. And when they get back, their 'tour' is not completed and they go home... there are years of medical and psychological testing to go through before they finally retire.

Christa McAuliffe spent 4 months training just to ride along in low-earth orbit; she had no duties aboard the shuttle.

The authorization act itself speaks of existing post-flight monitoring policies that extend for years after the mission.

YOU need to read the documents. Maybe get Kellyanne to help you with your comprehension.

For someone who originally complained about bringing politics into this discussion, you certainly have a tendency to do so yourself. My comprehension is just fine, and I certainly don't plan on basing it on partisan politics like you keep trying to do.

BUT YOU ARE RIGHT: I want them to have BOTH special attention for space related health stuff, AND regular comprehensive lifetime insurance for regular planetary health stuff.

Then be happy! That is exactly what this authorization does!

TheRedneck

A man by the name of Michel De Nostredame specifically mentioned the year 2033 AD as the start of a new era ( the 7th millenium ). Thought it was interesting given the date in OP.

a reply to: InachMarbank

You're referring to densities of neutral molecules. The upper atmosphere is comprised mostly of ions.

If you're really interested in this, why not make a thread? I don't see where this is related to the Mars mission or astronaut health, and there are a lot of members who are probably more current than I am on the various interactions. I just know there's no sheet of actual glass we have to break through.

TheRedneck

a reply to: Milehigh

Don't you have a link to the quatrain that mentions that? I'm interested!

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

By all means, yall keep looking up and go to Mars. BUT.. we have so much here on OUR planet that has not been properly explored or charted. Here.. on our little rock.. we have discoveries and wonders still to see unfold. I have never cared much about space.. thats for you guys. Ive always had an undying drive to explore our own wonders and am crushed that more dont realize just how much of this planet and our oceans are complete mysteries as they have never been explored. Like viruses we glom together in large pop centers and destroy it down to the soil.. then pave over it : when the world is so vast.. our understanding of it so shallow.

Tell you what, you get your Redneck ass to mars, send me back a hunk of Maritan gold and fund me a explorin' party.. anywhere you want. Ill even name the expedition after you : Rednecks Recon.. or something.

a reply to: TheRedneck

Save me a seat, brother!!

My ancestors crossed an ocean to settle, and yes, conquer a new land. The gulf between Earth and Mars? Just another ocean. No more or less hostile than the North Atlantic in the winter was in the late-sixteenth century when the first of my ancestors made the trip.

Or when other ancestors crossed the Appalachian Mountains heading west.

Imagine, setting a plow to martian soil to grow the first crops to begin to pave the way to self-sufficiency away from Mother Earth.

Eventually, fledglings have to leave the nest. That time is rapidly approaching, if not already here. Maybe I'm too old, maybe too broken down, but I'd drop everything in a hot second to get on that boat to cross that ocean. I think my ever so great-greats would think it rather cool of me.

originally posted by: seagull
a reply to: TheRedneck

Save me a seat, brother!!

My ancestors crossed an ocean to settle, and yes, conquer a new land. The gulf between Earth and Mars? Just another ocean. No more or less hostile than the North Atlantic in the winter was in the late-sixteenth century when the first of my ancestors made the trip.

Or when other ancestors crossed the Appalachian Mountains heading west.

Imagine, setting a plow to martian soil to grow the first crops to begin to pave the way to self-sufficiency away from Mother Earth.

Eventually, fledglings have to leave the nest. That time is rapidly approaching, if not already here. Maybe I'm too old, maybe too broken down, but I'd drop everything in a hot second to get on that boat to cross that ocean. I think my ever so great-greats would think it rather cool of me.

First... a VERY BASIC problem needs to be solved.


Pooping in space

originally posted by: TheRedneck
a reply to: InachMarbank

You're referring to densities of neutral molecules. The upper atmosphere is comprised mostly of ions.

If you're really interested in this, why not make a thread? I don't see where this is related to the Mars mission or astronaut health, and there are a lot of members who are probably more current than I am on the various interactions. I just know there's no sheet of actual glass we have to break through.

TheRedneck

Are you saying ionization is how all the nitrogen gets filtered out of the atmosphere at 60 miles altitude, leaving only oxygen? Adding or taking away electrons? Do you know how that would work?

How do you just know there is no glass ceiling? Have you travelled to 60 miles altitude?

a reply to: Advantage

Yep, it's a dead certainty that poopin' in space is a problem, there are, I'm almost positive, others that will require solving, as well.

However...that problem and the veritable host of others, wouldn't stop me for a second from hoppin' the boat to Mars.

Smart guys like TheRedneck and others will solve those problems, folks like me will make Mars, and other places, bloom.

Yep. In a hot second.

originally posted by: TheRedneck
a reply to: Milehigh

Don't you have a link to the quatrain that mentions that? I'm interested!

TheRedneck

in his 1557 almanach
"
L'An apres la creation du monde selon la vraye supputation des Chronographes 5524 & de la natiuité de nostre Seigneur Iesu-christ 1557"

Gives the date of the birth of Christ in reference to his chronoligcal time frame.

5524-1557= 3967 ( Christ born 3967 years after creation)


Then to know when it will be 6000 years since "creation" 6000-3967= 2033.

So this gives us an indication that for Nostradamus, the 7th millenium will start 2033 years after the birth of christ or year 2033 on our current calendar.

originally posted by: seagull
a reply to: Advantage

Yep, it's a dead certainty that poopin' in space is a problem, there are, I'm almost positive, others that will require solving, as well.

However...that problem and the veritable host of others, wouldn't stop me for a second from hoppin' the boat to Mars.

Smart guys like TheRedneck and others will solve those problems, folks like me will make Mars, and other places, bloom.

Yep. In a hot second.

Hey, 30K bounty on the solution offered in that article... get you a lot of Mars worthy seedlings.

a reply to: Advantage

It would, wouldn't it??

I've got some time in the morning...who knows, even a blind squirrel occasionally finds an acorn.

a reply to: seagull

However...that problem and the veritable host of others, wouldn't stop me for a second from hoppin' the boat to Mars.

Yeah, you're an old fart like me. I hear you.
Cosmic radiation ain't that much of concern when you've only got a couple of decades to go.

a reply to: Phage

Exactly!

To be able to stand at the base of the lander at Helium Base, and look out towards the setting sun and see just above it, twinkling blue in the darkening sky...Earth, or Jasoom (hey, I loved those books!) if you prefer. I can't begin to imagine what I'd feel seeing that. Homesick? Maybe. Amazement, almost certainly.

When it happens, it'll be hard, hard work. Even dangerous. What happens if that supply ship, for the first few years is a few months late for whatever reason?? Or an oxygen generator breaks and there is, for some odd reason, no spare parts to fix it? But in their own way, these dangers aren't really any more extreme than what my several times great grand parents when they were among the first settlers to cross the Appalachian mountains.

I find myself wanting to get fitted with a spacesuit.

a reply to: seagull

Family history says I have ancestors that traveled with the Donner expedition. The fact I'm here says they took a different trail.

But Mars, or even Moon. Hell, Earth orbit. I'm all in.
I would miss my daughter but she would understand.

a reply to: Phage

My family would miss me, too. But like your daughter, they'd say "why are you still here?", and pretty much push me out the door.

a reply to: Advantage

Who says it has to be either/or?

Tell you what: you get me a HD video of life at the depths of the Marianas Trench, and I'll swap you a chunk of Martian gold for it.

There's what? Five billion humans living on this sphere? That's a lot more than are needed for space missions.

TheRedneck

a reply to: seagull

I'm a mutt. My ancestors came from across the entire globe to get to Alabama... some braved the Atlantic, and some were lost to it (like John, the first surname ancestor to make it to America, lost at sea on a trip home to England). Some tamed the Appalachian wilderness alone (one line descends from the Black Dutch). Some migrations are lost to history, like my Cherokee heritage. But they all made it, in one way or another.

Humans are explorers and creators. It's what we do. When John settled here, he had no way of knowing that someday horses would be replaced by cars and trains and jets. He couldn't imagine a few hours' flight home. But I'm sure he knew that there was more to see, more to do, more to create. When Richard left to fight in the Revolutionary War, he knew nothing of atomic bombs or fighter planes, but he knew there were good things to come and he gave his life for that hope. Thanks to him, we have plenty of food and freedom, and an easier life with technology. I know there's more to do... maybe someday, when this body is dust, my grandkids or great-grandkids will hop a three-day shuttle to Mars to take a month of vacation, and when they get there, they'll see this blue ball in the sky, turn the other way, and think, "Now what's out there?"

It's what we do.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

NASA has serious deficits, as outlined in the agency’s 2015 report. You say the new Act will fix all the problems (when it’s passed). I say it won’t. Moreover, I think this Act, as-is, will benefit corporate partners and hurt American people.

…in cases like NASA, the continued insurance is part of their retirement.

Yes, you keep repeating that all astronauts have lifetime health coverage, just like all regular federal employees. But your saying it doesn’t make it so. They don’t. That’s one of NASA’s biggest and most public failings. As recently as 2016, proposed legislation to fix the ‘oversight’ did not pass.

From JUNE, 2016:

Astro nauts should get lifetime health care from NASA

For the first time today, members of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology met to discuss the health of astronauts and the moral obligations that NASA has to provide former astronauts with lifetime health care. NASA doesn’t currently provide health care to astronauts after they retire from the space agency, but Congress is considering passing legislation to authorize NASA to do so. In addition, the space agency would like to closely observe astronauts’ health, conducting MRIs of astronauts’ eyes and screening for cancer — in order to better understand how the human body is affected by space travel.

Spaceflight is a pre-existing condition

NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria flew to space four times for the space agency between 1995 and 2007. …His eyesight got significantly worse during his time in orbit, and NASA isn't paying for his contacts or doctor visits today, years after his retirement from the agency.

…The lack of health care for former astronauts has long been a sore spot at NASA, …

ALSO SEE:

NASA 2015: Astronaut Health Care

RE: I want all space personnel to have BOTH special attention for space related health stuff, AND regular comprehensive lifetime insurance for regular planetary health stuff.

That is exactly what this authorization does!

THE ACT IS …allowing retired astronauts to receive lifetime, free, government-paid treatment for conditions related to being an astronaut. It just won't apply if… (because) They already have insurance to cover that.

As I said, and you agree, the ACT does NOT provide health insurance coverage for both “regular” and space-related conditions. In fact, it very specifically EXCLUDES treatment for “regular” conditions - those NOT associated with space flight. However, all existent data is associated with low earth orbit - because there’s never been any deep space flight - so nothing is yet proven to be “associated with” deep space flight. And therefore is not necessarily covered by the new terms.

As I said - the Act puts claimants between a rock and a hard place - between Big Gov and Big Insurance. Fighting to get one or the other to cover their claims for as-yet-undetermined conditions. They’re fubarred. Just like military vets.

You seem to be confused about how insurance actually works.

I know a whole lot of military vets are totally fubarred by the flaws in their health coverage - and that astronauts and other space personnel will NOT last for anywhere near 20 years, which is the time required to qualify.

All of these retirement systems have a common thread: (after) 20 or more years, you are eligible to receive a pension based on a percentage of your basic pay.

BUT, you say:

…Astronauts are not hired; they are promoted/appointed from within the ranks of NASA or sometimes the military. …there are years of medical, psychological, and physical testing …That's years of preparation. Then there's the flight itself, …a few years to get to Mars and back. And when they get back, their 'tour' is not completed and they go home... there are years of medical and psychological testing to go through before they finally retire.

Well! There’s one big confusion out of the way! You’re saying astronauts, and presumably all other space personnel, will be hired only from ‘within the ranks,’ and will have put in the 20-year minimum needed to retire with full pension and complete medical coverage. That is, ALL space personnel will be defined as “government astronauts.”

Here I was thinking recruitment will focus on economically displaced out-of-work people - the ones replaced by automation and robots. Those who don’t have a hope in Hades of finding work on-planet. Those who don’t have the wherewithal and resources to fight and get what they need from Big Gov and Big Biz.

But, I say. But. …The Act does not stipulate internal promotions and appointments. Or prohibit recruitment from the general population. Which means it could go any way TPTB want.

…You seem to think this “new” Act fixes everything, most notably the things you don’t acknowledge were ever a problem. But I don’t think it does.

If, as you suggest, ALL space personnel are hired internally from the existent pool of permanent federal staff, who will retire with full a benefit package and pension, then the health issues I see are handled.

I just don’t think that’s how it will play.

And if recruits are pulled from the general population, I see even more problems than just medical coverage - like transparency, for starters, with waivers that fully detail the known medical threats [needs appropriation]. And maybe investments in technology to mitigate even just the already-known risks [needs appropriation]. …There’s more of course.

I agree that the Space Program should go forward. Just not in the way corporate industry has always done things. Not on the backs of unwitting and mis-informed people desperate for work.




Just for example:

Study Shows that Space Travel is Harmful to the Brain and Could Accelerate Onset of Alzheimer’s

Microbial growth at hyperaccelerations up to 403,627 × g

The Effects Of Space Flight On The Immune System

Space Medicine

From your first post to me, you politicized this issue, used ad hominem attacks and took one potshot after another - with your routine allegations of “whining,” “leftie,” and etc. I held off a very long time before responding in kind. Now, after 2 in-kind comments from me, you’re holding ME accountable for defending myself? SO not cool.