Posts by Dav_Daddy

40 years ago, classified Shuttle mission foreshadowed Challenger's fatal flaw

Re: So that year before mission was lucky!

If that would have happened they would have ejected the boosters and aborted the flight. Every time the shuttle launched they had abort runways standing by in either Europe, Africa or both depending on what orbit they were trying to reach and at what point in the launch the abort happened.

Scientists think they may have cracked life support for Martian occupation

Re: May??

Here we go with the irrational fear of radiation!

The 50mSv limit is to prevent your odds of getting cancer from increasing by like 3.5%. If we set a limit of no greater than 8% you'd be allowed a dose of like 2,500mSv. If you're willing to accept a higher cancer risk your allowed exposure goes up exponentially. (The whole inverse square thing nature does so often.)

Also unless we choose a stupid transfer window flight time to Mars should be more like 3 months. Of course once you are there you're stuck for 2 years till the window opens again. Actually there is another transfer window which involves Venus that takes around 9 months if memory serves me? I really could only see us using that in some type of emergency however.

Re: May??

I think you are vastly underestimating the body's ability to adapt.

Microgravity has been shown to be quite hard on the body. There is nothing to backup the assertion that lower gravity is harmful at all.

The fact that teams of guys laying undersea pipeline spend weeks living and working at pressures over 4x those at sea level seem to indicate quite the opposite.