back to article Boffins suggest astronauts should build a Wall of Death on the Moon

Astronauts living on the Moon will need to maintain a strict exercise regimen to avoid physical deterioration due to the low gravity, and one proposed solution will have them bouncing off the walls to do so. A group of Italian scientists from the University of Milan have published a paper suggesting that the best way to stay …

  1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
    Happy

    Insert mad-scientist cackle here

    "I will build a Wall of Death on the Moon!!!!" just begs to be said in a Dr. Strangelove voice, preferably seated in some underground lair in a volcano, whilst stroking a white Persian cat (and yes, I know that is more Blofeld).

    1. Paul Herber Silver badge

      Re: Insert mad-scientist cackle here

      My dear old things, can someone tell me why The Third Man was based in Austria, not exactly one of the top cricketing nations?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Insert mad-scientist cackle here

      Insert mad presidential tweet...

      "And we will get the Lunatics to pay for it"

  2. DS999 Silver badge
    Holmes

    Stanley Kubrick beat them to it

    By about 55 years if I remember the release date of the movie "2001" correctly.

    1. Richard 12 Silver badge

      Re: Stanley Kubrick beat them to it

      Well, only sort of.

      It is a centrifuge in 2001, but Clarke did explicitly point out that jogging around it in the "right" direction greatly improved the exercise without needing to spin the entire mass any faster.

    2. Dave314159ggggdffsdds Silver badge

      Re: Stanley Kubrick beat them to it

      Someone recently told me that NASA hired Stanley Kubrick to direct the fake moon landings, but he was such a perfectionist that he insisted on shooting on location.

  3. STOP_FORTH Silver badge
    Alert

    Wasted effort

    Why build walls of death? The place is positively infested with craters!

    Do not remove helmet whilst exercising outside.

  4. Christoph

    Will it ever be possible for humans to be gestated, born, and grow up in Lunar gravity? Or how about Mars gravity?

    If not, any colonies will have to permanently rely on immigration from Earth or from rotating space colonies such as O'Neill cylinders.

    1. imanidiot Silver badge

      The only honest answer to this question at this time is: nobody knows. And deliberately experimenting with such would be deemed highly unethical so the only way we're ever going to find out is if it just happens because the parents choose to.

    2. DJO Silver badge

      No expert but the foetus develops immersed in amniotic fluid. An immersed neutrally buoyant body is not hugely affected by gravity so I doubt if there would be significant problems before birth, after it might be a bit trickier.

      1. HelpfulJohn

        https://www.gutenberg.org/files/22549/22549-h/22549-h.htm

        It's a fun book and, despite the beggining and middle, a very hopeful story. It's Sf but it relies on the plasticity of humans.

        Though {SPOILERS} I'm not entirely sure that the people there would *be* human any longer. Not really.

    3. Dave314159ggggdffsdds Silver badge

      https://www.nature.com/articles/s41526-023-00272-5

      The short answer is that there may be some problems, but there doesn't seem any reason to think it's absolutely impossible for humans to procreate in space, let alone on the moon or another planet. So if it were absolutely necessary, it could happen - but if it weren't, then it's something any prospective parents with the choice would avoid doing.

      1. markrand
        Go

        Might need Bungee straps to procreate in space...

        1. HelpfulJohn

          Well, perhaps it might have solved the "arm-goes-to-sleep" problem?

          If she doesn't weigh very much maybe she wouldn't cut off the circulation?

          1. Ken Shabby Bronze badge

            You will avoid having to cut your own arm off

    4. HelpfulJohn

      "Will it ever be possible for humans to be gestated, born, and grow up in Lunar gravity? Or how about Mars gravity?"

      Yes, we could do it now though it would have presented problems in the 1970's. That's just modern medical miracles in action. Whatever issues arise, they would simply sort them out.

      The one issue that can't be sorted is that the seond and third generations and later would not have been "human". They may pay taxes(*) and have passports but they won't be able to go "home" to Earth nor to breed with Earthmen without help. Nor would an Earthman-Loonie hybrid be true to either subspecies, they may not even be fertile. H. Sap. Sap. and H. Sap. Neadndethalis. *were* interfertile but that pair lived on the same planet under very similar gravity for a few generations. Also, H.S.N. wouldn't have looked amiss on a London street. I don't see Homo Lunaris being four metres tall and elven, necessarily but there would have been differences. Definitely cultural ones, too. Loonies might have evolved to be better than Terrans.

      This would have been even more true had Man colonised the starworlds. The Children Of Man would have been descendants and may have had a cultural link to us, however tenuous but they would not have been true Hoo Sapiens Sapiensis any more than H. Sap. is true Homo Habilis.

      It's a shame that we'll never know if this assertion would have come true. Man isn't going out there. The Dream Of Stars is dead.

      (*) Trust me on this, they would have paid taxes to *someone*. Local councils would push property taxes on cockroaches if they could think of a way of enforcing it.

      1. MonsieurTM

        The assertion that Neanderthal and human hybrids were infertile is incorrect, as modern, living, Westerners today contains up to 3-4% Neanderthal DNA, which would be impossible if the offspring were infertile. The same is true with Denisovan-human hybrids. The humans they interbred with were sufficiently genetically similar for their offspring to be able to further reproduce with the humans of the time. Archaeology of human DNA has also revealed that other sub-species existed that interbred with our lineage, but left no fossil trace (yet discovered).

        1. GBE

          The assertion that Neanderthal and human hybrids were infertile is incorrect,

          Look again. The claim was that they were interfertile.

  5. jmch Silver badge
    Trollface

    Next step....

    Excellent start!!! Then the next step after circular-horizontal runners is to transform it into a post-apocalyptic highly violent ball sport. Teams of NFL-armoured players wielding baseball bats at a basketball-sized ball (and at each other) while an army of drones randomly drop booby traps and power-ups, all televised live for the viewing pleasure of a billion earthings.

    What's not to like??

    1. Fr. Ted Crilly Silver badge

      Re: Next step....

      Well, yes... but look what happened to Moonpie...

    2. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge
      Alien

      Re: Next step....

      I'm sure there was an episode of Citation Needed where the Technical Difficulties mused on the subject of football on Mars, and adapting the game to lower gravity.

      1. Christoph

        Re: Next step....

        And there's the story "The Day We Played Mars" (the match being played on the Moon) in "The Exploits of Engelbrecht"

    3. deive

      Re: Next step....

      Brutal deluxe :-)

    4. The Organ Grinder's Monkey

      Re: Next step....

      Of you've not seen it, you might find Rollerball an entertaining watch. I've not seen it since the 70s

      so I might be giving it more credit than it's due, but the soundtrack had its moments if all else fails.

  6. that one in the corner Silver badge

    Will it be cheating to wear rollerblades?

    Less running, but faster means more centri(petal and/or fugal, your choice) force needed/imparted and hence more leg strength, heart pumping etc.

    (jmch beat me to it, so I won't continue by saying that is one step away from "Rollerball - on the Mooooooon!")

  7. Vulch
    1. Dinanziame Silver badge
      Pint

      Oh thanks! I remember reading Clarke commenting about this as an allusion to 2001 Space Odyssey, but I had never actually seen the video.

  8. Dave 126 Silver badge

    No moving parts...

    In contrast to a spinning lunar habitat:

    https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/12/the_moon_needs_spinning_gravity/

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How fast is the Moon Buggy?

    n/t

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I think I use a wall of death daily....

    To quote the article:- ". Doing so sees the vehicle become almost parallel to the ground as it travels,"

    My car is usually parallel with the ground, until it hits a pothole (quite common in my area).... I think the author meant "perpendicular to the ground...."

    1. Dave314159ggggdffsdds Silver badge

      Re: I think I use a wall of death daily....

      I think the author did mean parallel, but it's the wrong way to describe it. One of the axes normally parallel to the ground would remain so, one would become perpendicular, and the one that's normally perpendicular would become parallel. Though of course, not to the ground, but to a line perpendicular to the gravitational force.

      1. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
        Go

        Re: I think I use a wall of death daily....

        If we had access to the TARDIS, we could nip back & ask Jon Pertwee who while still at school worked as a circus performer riding the Wall of Death on a motorcycle with a toothless lion in the sidecar.

    2. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Oh, you know what we mean

      The vehicle is perpendicular to the surface touching the wheels, and parallel with the ground or floor beneath it [triv]

      C.

  11. M7S

    Faster, faster, faster

    I expect you’d get greater effects of “gravity” with more speed, so a motorcycle would make sense.

    Nicholas Fisk showed us how in his text “Wheelie among the stars”.

    And for those of you saying motorcycling might be hazardous, remember everyone there elected to strap them to a giant firework and leave the atmosphere, so it would be relaxing by comparison, or to riding in London where the tyre damage would be roughly similar if, as another commentary noted, you just used a crater.

  12. Bill Gray

    Meanwhile, here on Earth...

    I think the Olympic records for the hundred-metre dash are down to around ten seconds. So for at least some people, speeds of ten m/s are possible.

    For a Wall of Death with a ten-metre radius, you'd get an acceleration of v^2/r = 10 m/s^2, about one g. So on Earth, you could have your "wall" tilted at 45 degrees and would make a circuit every six seconds or so, and would experience about 1.4 gravities (the vector combination of the earth pulling you down at one g and your own efforts causing one g horizontally.) Which might slow you down a bit, of course; I'd certainly run slower if somebody loaded 40% of my body weight on me.

    On the moon, the wall would only need be tilted about six degrees from vertical, and you'd experience about a one-g horizontal pull only (the added 1/6 gravity vertically wouldn't do much, except require the tilted wall.)

    You could make the WoD slightly smaller so as not to require world-record dash speeds, of course. I'd think that at some point, you might be trying to turn around too sharply for it to work. I chose a ten-m radius above mostly to keep it simple; ten is, of course, a "physicist's dozen".

    1. HelpfulJohn

      Re: Meanwhile, here on Earth...

      You also need to consider that at a ten metre radius, only the feet are ten metres away from the centre and experiencing the full force.

      The head is about two metres closer and feeling far less acceleration. A larger pit, one that could accommodate many person at once like a bicycle stadium, would be better. The larger the circle, the more even the forces spread along the body would be.

      Bicycles would also be fun. Cheaper and lighter than motorised vehicles, easy to build or assemble on site and easy to maintain. And,as they are entirely powered by the drivers they would provide far better exercise than would hogs or lunar rovers.

      Indeed, bicycles could have been used as transport *everywhere* on the Moon. They could go anywhere a mule could and, unlike mules, would not die without a suit. If the Loonies needed to carry gear, maybe a trike with a large cargo-box would suffice for many tasks?

      Fitting the pedals and brakes to gloves and boots is simple engineering. That is already done on Earth for those with differently-abled bodies. A sunshade would have been able to double as a solar-powered photovaltaic charger for any electronic kit, and the suits, that the Loonies might have used.

    2. jmch Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: Meanwhile, here on Earth...

      " records for the hundred-metre dash are down to around ten seconds. So for at least some people, speeds of ten m/s are possible."

      10 m/s (36km/h) is actually reachable by a higher proportion of humans than just olympic-level sprinters. 10 m/s is the average speed for a race with a standing start, so peak speeds reached are actually quite higher. Usain Bolt's top speed on his record 9.58 seconds 100m was 44 .72 km/h. That's also why the 200m record is almost exactly 2X the 100m record even though athletes tire more over longer distances and can't keep the same pace - the fact that they are starting the second 100m from a running start compensates for that.

      Just to be clear, peak speeds of 10 m/s are still elite sports territory, but possibly achievable (or close to achievable) by highly trained astronauts in peak condition.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Futurama Luna Park

    We're whalers on the moon,

    We carry a harpoon,

    For they ain't no whales

    So we tell tall tales

    And sing our whaling tune.

  14. herman Silver badge

    Skylab

    Astronauts in the old/prehistoric Skylab, did exactly that. They ran across the cupboards and dented everything. Apart from getting some exercise, running in a spiral enabled them to easily get from one end to the other.

  15. Michael Hoffmann Silver badge
    Gimp

    Didn't we see Bobby and the Mars Marines training like on one episode of The Expanse? First season, I dimly remember.

  16. MonsieurTM

    I still don't get sending humans to the Moon... It's a terrible place for humans to live. The energy required to permit humans to live there, although roughly the same as the Earth, requires far more infrastructure. (No atmosphere, too little gravity, too much radiation, too great temperature swings, not enough accessible water, nor food. And sewage... Well. Then we have environmental issues: yes, we have already littered the Moon with rubbish (see Apollo amongst other programs.) But the ethical issues: so long-stay humans will want to form relationships and have sex. But no babies. Is it ethical to stop humans reproducing? The Moon dust is utterly terrible.

    By the time we are able to solve these issues, we'll already have good enough drones there an immersive reality: so the humans can stay on Earth and investigate the Moon remotely to their hearts' content.

    Moon bases are basically for short-stays, for the super-duper rich. That the rest of us will pay for in taxes or quantitative easing that will destroy our pensions. (Consider Concorde.)

    Please do not misunderstand me: I'd love to got to the Moon and Mars and elsewhere: for a *holiday*, but for *science*: meat-sacks are the worst.

    If we want to send humans, long-term, to places they did not originate, we need to accept the simple fact: ethics be damned, humans will shag and therefore reproduce (as enforced abortions are unethical) and enforced *temporary* (one hopes) sterilisation is likewise unethical. So the only solution: humans should be permitted to be born on the Moon or Mars or elsewhere, but they are most unlikely to return to Earth, as it will no longer be their psychological habitat.

    Consider the works of James Blish.

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