Deep space health

[Kertech]

Humans travelling in space are subjected to huge amounts of stress physically. Microgravity causes muscle wasting, loss of bone density, acute hydrocephalus and longer term causes immune supression. Beyond earths magnetosphere we are subjected to high levels of radiation for long periods. 

 

So what would be the biggest health challenge and how would you solve it?

[Nibb31]

Apparently, one of the biggest problems is intracranian pressure and optical nerve deformation.

[Newt]

A lot of the biggest challenges seem micro-gravity related. 

You solve those challenges by not living in microgravity.

[Spaceception]

I'd solve it by by putting a rotating doughnut wheel in space, that'll fix most of them.

[Nibb31]

2 hours ago, Spaceception said:

I'd solve it by by putting a rotating doughnut wheel in space, that'll fix most of them.

It's likely to cause other issues due to the Coriolis effect, including problems with the inner-ear.

[Spaceception]

27 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

It's likely to cause other issues due to the Coriolis effect, including problems with the inner-ear.

It depends on how big it is, and how much "gravity" you're producing though, if it's a few hundred meters wide, and the "gees" are low (Maybe Mars' gravity), the effects should be minimal, and you'll solve most of your problems regarding traveling through space.

Edited February 1, 2016 by Spaceception

[peadar1987]

The biggest problems are microgravity and radiation. Both of those are trivial to solve. Rotating tether for gravity, shielding for radiation. Of course this all adds mass, but we can build very big modular things in space, with the modularity being a technical challenge, but far from impossible. The main obstacle is money. We don't want to stump up the cash to make the large number of launches required to pull this off

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, peadar1987 said:

The biggest problems are microgravity and radiation. Both of those are trivial to solve. Rotating tether for gravity, shielding for radiation. Of course this all adds mass, but we can build very big modular things in space, with the modularity being a technical challenge, but far from impossible. The main obstacle is money. We don't want to stump up the cash to make the large number of launches required to pull this off

If you use an long spaceship typically, engine, reactor and fuel in one end and crew in the other you could tumble the ship. 
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/images/artificialgrav/tumblingPigeon.jpg
Should work nice.

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/images/artificialgrav/orionSpin01.jpg
This is an better design for an larger high twr rocket. Venture stat in Avatar used this design too. 

You would use an storm cellar for radiation storms. 
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/images/artificialgrav/orion2.jpg
On an orion it would also protect you from radiation during burn. This design also has an escape system. 
On something like hermes it would be close to center of mass and you use your water supply around. 

[linuxgurugamer]

Just now, magnemoe said:

If you use an long spaceship typically, engine, reactor and fuel in one end and crew in the other you could tumble the ship. 
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/images/artificialgrav/tumblingPigeon.jpg
Should work nice.

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/images/artificialgrav/orionSpin01.jpg
This is an better design for an larger high twr rocket. Venture stat in Avatar used this design too. 

You would use an storm cellar for radiation storms. 
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/images/artificialgrav/orion2.jpg
On an orion it would also protect you from radiation during burn. This design also has an escape system. 
On something like hermes it would be close to center of mass and you use your water supply around. 

Sorry to say, none of those images are available

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Sorry to say, none of those images are available

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/artificialgrav.php#pigeon
Here is an direct link. sneaky site you can open image in new windows but not link. 

[peadar1987]

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

If you use an long spaceship typically, engine, reactor and fuel in one end and crew in the other you could tumble the ship. 
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/images/artificialgrav/tumblingPigeon.jpg
Should work nice.

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/images/artificialgrav/orionSpin01.jpg
This is an better design for an larger high twr rocket. Venture stat in Avatar used this design too. 

You would use an storm cellar for radiation storms. 
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/images/artificialgrav/orion2.jpg
On an orion it would also protect you from radiation during burn. This design also has an escape system. 
On something like hermes it would be close to center of mass and you use your water supply around. 

I was thinking more of the general ambient radiation, which is enough to significantly increase rates of cancer and birth defects, even if it's not going to kill anyone with radiation poisoning like a severe solar storm might

 

[tater]

The problems with rotating habitats have to do with radius. I think that under 2 rpm, things are fine. For 2 rpm, you need a ~223m radius for 1g, but just 67m for martian gravity. 

[magnemoe]

4 minutes ago, tater said:

The problems with rotating habitats have to do with radius. I think that under 2 rpm, things are fine. For 2 rpm, you need a ~223m radius for 1g, but just 67m for martian gravity. 

The benefit of the tumbling pigeon design, lenght of ship is the diameter, if engine and fuel is the heaviest part it increases radius for crew. 
Its also not known how well we will adjust to this, we adjust to no gravity who is far harder.

One interesting test would be to put an small inflatable station in orbit. Crew arrives with dragon or soyuz, the pod with service module is then attached to an wire and the contraption is spun up so you can study different gravity and rpm.

[tater]

Yeah, this seems like an obvious experiment to do with a Bigelow at some point. Long-duration missions would also actually give us data on what the minimal gravitational value is for human health to not be negatively affected.

[sgt_flyer]

one problem with rotating the whole spacecraft, is keeping your radiators / solar panels / antennas correctly aligned relatively to the sun and the earth.

on another note, regarding some of the microgravity problems, (at first, against spinal elongation, but it could also help a little against bone density loss and muscle atrophy), ESA tested the Skinsuit on ISS, http://blogs.esa.int/iriss/2015/08/12/revealing-the-identity-of-skinsuit-man/ which is made to try to create a more uniform vertical loading on the body, without being unconfortable for astronauts.

 

 

[fredinno]

4 hours ago, magnemoe said:

If you use an long spaceship typically, engine, reactor and fuel in one end and crew in the other you could tumble the ship. 
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/images/artificialgrav/tumblingPigeon.jpg
Should work nice.

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/images/artificialgrav/orionSpin01.jpg
This is an better design for an larger high twr rocket. Venture stat in Avatar used this design too. 

You would use an storm cellar for radiation storms. 
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/images/artificialgrav/orion2.jpg
On an orion it would also protect you from radiation during burn. This design also has an escape system. 
On something like hermes it would be close to center of mass and you use your water supply around. 

Those would require your ship to be designed for both G and Zero-G, adding to the costs.

[tater]

10 minutes ago, fredinno said:

Those would require your ship to be designed for both G and Zero-G, adding to the costs.

All spacecraft already manage to survive under 1g during construction, often in more than one direction (possibly horizontal during construction, then vertical after mating to the rocket). They then experience over 1g during launch.

I doubt this is a serious issue at all.

Edited February 1, 2016 by tater

[fredinno]

10 minutes ago, tater said:

All spacecraft already manage to survive under 1g during construction, often in more than one direction (possibly horizontal during construction, then vertical after mating to the rocket). They then experience over 1g during launch.

I doubt this is a serious issue at all.

People are going to be living in these things during it's spinning, which makes all the difference, since space station modules actually have cabinets and other stuff on the floors and roofs too.

Also, you'd have to deal with the problem of sloshing fuel on a spinner. Even space stations have fuel aboard.

[magnemoe]

3 hours ago, fredinno said:

People are going to be living in these things during it's spinning, which makes all the difference, since space station modules actually have cabinets and other stuff on the floors and roofs too.

Also, you'd have to deal with the problem of sloshing fuel on a spinner. Even space stations have fuel aboard.

Trust will probably be low and of limited length, you can survive 5 hours at 0.3g sitting on the roof with no plumbing, if the benefit is 90 days at 0.3g over freefall. Fuel will be at the engine and will be pushed in the trust direction you would need to stop rotation for burns anyway. 
Plumbing need to work in 0g too.

Note that the  http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/artificialgrav.php#pigeon  site also used this for orion, this is an issue as orion have high trust so you want to lie down in an bunk in the storm cellar during burn. On the other hand moving bedding from top to bottom of bunks is not an huge undertaking
 

[tater]

3 hours ago, fredinno said:

People are going to be living in these things during it's spinning, which makes all the difference, since space station modules actually have cabinets and other stuff on the floors and roofs too.

Also, you'd have to deal with the problem of sloshing fuel on a spinner. Even space stations have fuel aboard.

Latching the cabinets, etc, has to happen anyway. Not an issue. Designing "up" already happens, ISS has a preferred orientation within, because people expect an up and down, even in space. It also orients them for communicating with each other (it's apparently very distracting to talk to someone who is upside down).

Fuel is only going to slosh a couple times, and it's going to do this in 0 g as well (it sloshes every time the ISS boosts). These are trivial issues as long as they bother to design for them (which they would).

[magnemoe]

55 minutes ago, tater said:

Latching the cabinets, etc, has to happen anyway. Not an issue. Designing "up" already happens, ISS has a preferred orientation within, because people expect an up and down, even in space. It also orients them for communicating with each other (it's apparently very distracting to talk to someone who is upside down).

Fuel is only going to slosh a couple times, and it's going to do this in 0 g as well (it sloshes every time the ISS boosts). These are trivial issues as long as they bother to design for them (which they would).

Not talking about stuff like switches, screens and keyboards. Yes you also use floor and ceiling for storage and swim trough the corridors. 
Fuel also sloshes during burn, you don't care much outside of burns as long as engines work. 

[tater]

My point is that the engines won't be running while a ship is spun end over end. The crew cabin will not have been occupied until space, and the only time up/down would change in the crew cabin is unspun (down towards rocket motor), or spun, where down is now away from the rocket motor. 

[kerbiloid]

You can increase gravity using rotating habitats - and nothing disallows to do this on a planet surface too (imagine a colony of centrifugal governor towers). Main problem is a friction, but you can use magnetic levitation instead of mechanical bearings. All you need is energy.

Also, you can increase gravity in such way, but not decrease.
But super-Earth planets with super-Earth gravity would look more like Uranus or Venus high-pressure hell, so anyway you wouldn't need to stay there.

So, the only problem is an energy source and heat radiator.

[DBowman]

On 2/1/2016 at 9:00 PM, Nibb31 said:

Apparently, one of the biggest problems is intracranian pressure and optical nerve deformation.

They think this might be caused / exacerbated by not scrubbing CO2 aggressively enough, which if it was the case has a pretty simple fix.