Paleo Diet: Raw Paleo Diet and Lifestyle Forum
Raw Paleo Diet Forums => Off Topic => Topic started by: goodsamaritan on June 04, 2010, 07:19:43 am
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MOSCOW - Six men from Europe, Russia and China will on Thursday be voluntarily locked away in a module for almost one and a half years to simulate the psychological effects of a mission to Mars.
An Italian, Frenchman, three Russians and a Chinese man will spend the next 520 days in the isolation facility at a Moscow research institute when its hatch slams shut at 2:00 pm (1000 GMT).
Like a real Mars mission, the crew will have to survive on limited food rations and their only communication with the outside world will be by email, with a delay of up to 40 minutes.
The hatch will only re-open when the experiment is over or if one of the participants is forced to pull out.
"It will be trying for all of us. We cannot see our family, we cannot see our friends, but I think it is all a glorious time in our lives," said Chinese participant Wang Yue, 27, ahead of the experiment.
The volunteers will have their days in the module at the Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems (IBMP) divided into eight hours of sleep, eight hours of work and eight hours of leisure.
A team of three will spend one month aboard a special module meant to represent the Mars landing craft, while two will also spend time exploring a reconstruction of Mars itself.
The idea is to exactly mimic the timescale of a Mars mission—250 days for the trip to Mars, 30 days on the surface and 240 days for the return journey, totaling 520 days.
The crew also conspicuously lacks women, meaning the experiment will not be able to examine the possible sexual tensions that could arise on a trip to Mars for a mixed-gender crew.
Yury Karash, a Russian space policy expert, said the gender composition of the crew would allow the participants to focus on their professional duties instead of unwittingly competing for attention of their female crew members.
"It is better for the crew to be same-sex," he said on Russian television. "No-one has abolished the basic instinct yet."
Volunteers have already admitted that they will be tested by being separated from their loved ones and partners for such a long period of time.
Frenchman Romain Charles, 31, said the hardest thing will be the disruption of contact "with the family, the girlfriend, the friends with whom the distance is going to be difficult to manage."
Their diet will be no different to that enjoyed by real-life astronauts on the International Space Station and the crew will be given the food at the beginning of the experiment, forcing them to ration out their supplies.
The experiment is a joint venture between the IBMP and the European Space Agency (ESA), which describes the project as a mission "to mimic a full mission to Mars and back as accurately as possible without actually going there."
The ESA and the US space agency NASA have separately sketched dates in around three decades from now for a manned flight to Mars.
The Red Planet's distance from Earth varies between 55 million kilometers (34 million miles) and more than 400 million kilometers (250 million miles), depending on where the two planets are in their respective orbits.
The project, the first full-duration simulated mission to Mars, follows a similar experiment at the (IBMP) last year which saw six volunteers shut away for a mere 105 days.
from http://technology.inquirer.net/infotech/infotech/view/20100603-273623/Six-men-to-brave-520-day-isolation-on-Mars-mission
I'm wondering if it were us, what diet would we bring along? Will our raw meats and raw organs keep refrigerated or frozen that long? What food stuff would you bring along if it were you?
Regarding the sex abstinence part, 520 days of zero sex sounds like too much torture to me.
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I'm wondering if it were us, what diet would we bring along? Will our raw meats and raw organs keep refrigerated or frozen that long? What food stuff would you bring along if it were you?
Very unlikely.
Regarding the sex abstinence part, 520 days of zero sex sounds like too much torture to me.
Yeah, they'd probably take matters into their own hands (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ADateWithRosiePalms), if you know what I mean (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IfYouKnowWhatIMean).
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Yeah, they'd probably take matters into their own hands (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ADateWithRosiePalms), if you know what I mean (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IfYouKnowWhatIMean).
LOL, just the fact that this was hyperlinked, as if it needed explaining or to a Martian or Data from Star Trek or something I literally burst with laughter.
GS: Since starting with raw foods I've always been frustrated that space travel seems impossible for long term rawfoodies. My guess now is that frozen meat would hold up far better than most raw foods - on the ground anyway - not sure about the gravity and other issues. I think the 520 days sounds a little long for frozen though, perhaps some have experience with it long freezing. Maybe they could pick up some Martian meat?
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Unfortunately I don't really think it would work to well for us raw foodists. However pemmican could be somewhat of a solution.
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The way I see it, raw foods could become useful in a journey through space. I suspect that raw-foods work better at slowing down(if only slightly) the deterioration in physical health due to exposure to zero-gravity for long periods. Once reaching Mars, the effects of low gravity there could be alleviated by astronauts wearing much heavier spacesuits.
Raw plants could be grown in a spaceship if sufficient energy was provided re artificial sunlight etc., no doubt requiring a futuristic fusion reactor and hydroponics. Raw animal foods could be obtained either via long-term freezing or by having small mammals(rats?) in the ship which would feed on the raw plants.
As for the sex issue, in a real space journey(except possibly with a very large turning spacecraft simulating earth-gravity), that wouldn't be an issue as zero-gravity would make sex a very difficult proposition. That said, I have always wondered if someone has ever had sex in space. I have noted that Nasa has allowed married couples as astronauts on the same space-shuttle mission, so I suspect that they probably did some top-secret "experiments" in this regard. It's important as the human inability to carry a pregnancy to term in space is a hindrance to colonising space.
The 1 thing that has annoyed me is the total lack of interest in spaceflight among governments. Nasa has had its budgets slashed routinely by retarded presidents and so on. What should happen is that different regions should pool their resources and each government in those regions allocate 0.5% of their budgets to space - that way Europe or North America or Asia could get to Mars in double-quick time. Also, there are some promising technologies which should be used such as Project Orion(ie the use of exploding nuclear fission bombs as fuel). Granted, you would have to have such a spacecraft using that technology only from the Moon not from the Earth, but it would mean speeds as high as 8-10% of lightspeed if nuclear fusion was involved, and 3-5% if nuclear fission was involved.
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Raw plants could be grown in a spaceship if sufficient energy was provided re artificial sunlight etc., no doubt requiring a futuristic fusion reactor and hydroponics. Raw animal foods could be obtained either via long-term freezing or by having small mammals(rats?) in the ship which would feed on the raw plants.
Yeah, I think it is out of our current capabilities, but the Danny Boyle film Sunshine, had awesome visuals and systems depicting how this could work. It was a colossal flop of a film, but offered a great peek at some near-possible SF. For a large craft, if it is possible to grow large amounts of microplants and grasses, they could probably raise even larger animals.
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Why all men?
How about sending an ALL WOMEN crew?
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Raw animal foods could be obtained either via long-term freezing or by having small mammals(rats?) in the ship which would feed on the raw plants.
As for the sex issue, in a real space journey(except possibly with a very large turning spacecraft simulating earth-gravity), that wouldn't be an issue as zero-gravity would make sex a very difficult proposition. That said, I have always wondered if someone has ever had sex in space. I have noted that Nasa has allowed married couples as astronauts on the same space-shuttle mission, so I suspect that they probably did some top-secret "experiments" in this regard. It's important as the human inability to carry a pregnancy to term in space is a hindrance to colonising space.
Rats are omnivores. Would we feed them plants because they like gnawing, and sprouts would be easily grown? Insects are good rodent food. Could we have worm bins there? Rodents naturally like to dig. It might help provide a more natural balance of microorganisms for the air on mission too. Insects are catching on for people to eat as well. I saw dried flavored crickets and worms at a local store. The were grown, processed and packaged in California. The store staff told me they have been selling very well.
What would be difficult about sex? Humans cannot carry a pregnancy to term in a space ship? Why not? The deficiency of air pressure or lack of gravity? Would it somehow relate to a wikipedia definition for pregnant? One scientific term for the state of pregnancy is gravid
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Yes, insects might well be an option.
Sex in space is a problem as zero-gravity inevitably leads to lower blood-pressure meaning men are less likely to "perform", quite aside from other considerations such as increased sweatiness in zero-G due to lack of convection of heat etc etc.. Also, experiments on pregnant mice and resulting offspring in zero-G show that they had reduced skeletal mass(and muscle?) and were unable to right themselves when back in earth-gravity.
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There was also abnormal development of the organs I believe as well, also the reduced gravity on mars cannot be made up for by heavier space suits, as heavier suits don't increase gravity, they are just heavier... if being heavier was the issue, they'd just send fat men into space... the reduced gravity effects you no matter how much weight you have on you unless you pile on so much weight that you can barely walk, in which case that would only help with the bones, your brain and internal organs still have issues with the reduced gravity... insects would seem like the only viable option for bringing live food, as they tend to have the highest nutritional value to feed ratio of all sources of animal protein, Chickens are #1 as far as common sources of protein in the west goes...
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Have you got any evidence for the above? It's just that I had assumed that wearing heavier(lead-lined etc.) spacesuits would easily compensate re lower-gravity-concerns.