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EVA, IVA, IEVA suit gamma rad resistance


jsisidore

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9 hours ago, jsisidore said:

In relation with radiation and evolution are we talking about free radicals? A bit of chaos to spice things up?

Not only but also. Depending on intensity and wavelength there are different outcomes, from just a few radicals over damaged dna (vivible next generation) to direct effects on the tissue. This may result in no immediate effect, an slightly shortened life expectancy, cancer years later or even death in the course of weeks or days.

The effects are quantifiable when looking at large numbers. Though there are no reliable numbers estimations are that of the half million of the mentioned Chernobyl liquidators roughly 10% died from the exposure to the radiation (according to wik, which i don't necessarily believe in).

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I am a believer that we're still evolving.

Of course "we" are. Brain shrinks and senses get lost for example. It is not a question of belief. Aquarium fish-, cat- or dog-breeders use its principles every day creating more or less "fit" creatures, where "fitness" means "fulfills the breeders criteria". Evolution is not only visible, one can work with it.

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In anyway, we have evolved to be resistant to some forms of radiation, but with some help from bio-engineering I think we can accelerate and tweak this process if the need will arise...

Now, that is a question of belief :-)

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Mechas are fun but I'm looking at global disasters and not so much local ones.

Global disasters themselves have little direct influence on evolution, they only kill on a momentary basis. There is no time to adapt or adaptation is impossible. Photosynthetic plants can't adapt to a year long winter with cloudy skies and animals like us can't adapt to living without food and warmth for more than a few days. It is outside our material's specification :-) And irl we cannot live in a radiation suit, there is too much exchange with the environment.

Global disasters have been hiatuses in the past, but not like a switch that is put from one position to another. @Steel is right, the changes are not directly visible in terms of human lifetimes. Once the initial dying is over, in the course of 10.000s to millions years species vanish, niches are closed new niches open, new species show up. But in terms of a span of an individual human lifetime this is uninteresting.

 

I would very much like to do a game one day that tries to simulate an evolution by applying what palaeontology has found out until now :-)

 

Edited by Green Baron
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1 hour ago, Green Baron said:

And irl we cannot live in a radiation suit, there is too much exchange with the environment.

I would very much like to do a game one day that tries to simulate an evolution by applying what palaeontology has found out until now :-)

What do you mean by exchange? Oxygen and other elements can be supplemented isn't it?

Sounds like a very ambitious project, can't imagine how buggy it will be lol... I had so many game ideas but never got past forcing myself to learn coding in javascript, tried unity but already burned out from learning javascript. Still wait for a future where robots will code for me lol

Edited by jsisidore
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7 minutes ago, jsisidore said:

If 1962 had a worst-case scenario, how bad and how long do you think the irradiated environment would affect the survivors? A year, ten, or a century?

What specifically in 1962?

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5 minutes ago, jsisidore said:

What do you mean by exchange? Oxygen and other elements can be supplemented isn't it?

But they have to be taken from the environment. A storage lasts only until it is empty. The skin exchanges elements, we breathe, we take food and water in and not little. It'll soon (days) be poisonous inside. You can wear a suit for a few hours only or you must dispose off the products of the metabolism, died off hairs, skin, etc. peepee

 

6 minutes ago, jsisidore said:

If 1962 had a worst-case scenario, how bad and how long do you think the irradiated environment would affect the survivors? A year, ten, or a century?

You mean the cuba crisis ? Much has been written about it. Too much probably. This is not a computer game !

Large parts of the world would have been uninhabitable, at least centuries, it doesn't matter how many. You can look up half life of the elements and radiation levels. Survivors would have a hard time gathering food, they would have a very low life expectancy and lead a miserable life of disabilities, if they were still able to procreate and the offspring was fertile they would soon start to battle over the rare resources that aren't too much poisoned. This isn't fun, i would say humankind would not be able to recover from such a holocaust and build something new.

 

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1 hour ago, Green Baron said:

But they have to be taken from the environment. A storage lasts only until it is empty. The skin exchanges elements, we breathe, we take food and water in and not little. It'll soon (days) be poisonous inside. You can wear a suit for a few hours only or you must dispose off the products of the metabolism, died off hairs, skin, etc. peepee

 

You mean the cuba crisis ? Much has been written about it. Too much probably. This is not a computer game !

Large parts of the world would have been uninhabitable, at least centuries, it doesn't matter how many. You can look up half life of the elements and radiation levels. Survivors would have a hard time gathering food, they would have a very low life expectancy and lead a miserable life of disabilities, if they were still able to procreate and the offspring was fertile they would soon start to battle over the rare resources that aren't too much poisoned. This isn't fun, i would say humankind would not be able to recover from such a holocaust and build something new.

 

And that's ignoring the nuclear winter that would wipe out most of the plant life that hadn't already died from the radiation!

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Now, now. Let's not be so apocalyptic :) Earth wouldn't be blanketed equally with nuclear explosions - they would be clustered around major cities, industrial centers (in many cases it would be both) and on the initial frontlines in conventional sense. And exchange would be relatively short - couple of days at most. Later, most likely no one would have strenght and resources to keep it up. It's very possible huge swathes of land away from the "action" would be left relatively intact. Fighting superpowers would have no reason to nuke most of Africa, Central Asia, Australia, South America etc. Northern territories of Russia and Canada would be likely ignored too - not too many important targets to vaporise there. Both USA coasts and majority of Europe would be totally screwed on the other hand. As for radiation and contamination - we nuked our own world over thousand times since 1945. Some of the biggest test explosions were truly, terrifyingly gargantuan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba)

And yet...hey - no two headed mutants in sight :) Compared to the size of Earth, even biggest, dirtiest explosion is just a pinprick. Over the course of decades contaminants would get dispersed by wind, rain and soil erosion. I don't think we refined enough fissionables to render the entire surface uninhabitable - but thats the question for more knowledgeable people :)

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2 hours ago, Scotius said:

Now, now. Let's not be so apocalyptic :) Earth wouldn't be blanketed equally with nuclear explosions - they would be clustered around major cities, industrial centers (in many cases it would be both) and on the initial frontlines in conventional sense. And exchange would be relatively short - couple of days at most. Later, most likely no one would have strenght and resources to keep it up. It's very possible huge swathes of land away from the "action" would be left relatively intact. Fighting superpowers would have no reason to nuke most of Africa, Central Asia, Australia, South America etc. Northern territories of Russia and Canada would be likely ignored too - not too many important targets to vaporise there. Both USA coasts and majority of Europe would be totally screwed on the other hand. As for radiation and contamination - we nuked our own world over thousand times since 1945. Some of the biggest test explosions were truly, terrifyingly gargantuan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba)

And yet...hey - no two headed mutants in sight :) Compared to the size of Earth, even biggest, dirtiest explosion is just a pinprick. Over the course of decades contaminants would get dispersed by wind, rain and soil erosion. I don't think we refined enough fissionables to render the entire surface uninhabitable - but thats the question for more knowledgeable people :)

EDIT: Having re-read this, I'll preface it with an "POSSIBLY OFF-TOPIC" warning.

 

The radiation is not so much of a problem as the contaminants and the fires started by the blasts. One of the most cited papers on the topic of nuclear winters [1] (including a certain Carl Sagan as an author) projects that just 100 megatons worth of mid-yeild (~100 kT) air blast bombs targeting cities and nearby industrial areas could ignite 50% of urban flammable material, or a "conventional nuclear exchange" targeting military and infrastructure targets could ignite 25% - 75%. The resulting soot in the atmosphere could cause, according to their model, "midsummer land temperature decreases that average 10 to 20°C in northern mid-latitudes, with local cooling as large as 35°C, and subfreezing summer temperatures in some regions" along with "disruption of monsoon precipitation and severe depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer in the Northern Hemisphere", which is pretty apocalyptic if you ask me. The temperature drop alone would basically end outdoor agriculture.

[1] R. P. Turco et.al.Climate and Smoke: An Appraisal of Nuclear Winter, Science, 247, 166–176, 1990

Edited by Steel
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1 hour ago, Steel said:

EDIT: Having re-read this, I'll preface it with an "POSSIBLY OFF-TOPIC" warning.

 

The radiation is not so much of a problem as the contaminants and the fires started by the blasts. One of the most cited papers on the topic of nuclear winters [1] (including a certain Carl Sagan as an author) projects that just 100 megatons worth of mid-yeild (~100 kT) air blast bombs targeting cities and nearby industrial areas could ignite 50% of urban flammable material, or a "conventional nuclear exchange" targeting military and infrastructure targets could ignite 25% - 75%. The resulting soot in the atmosphere could cause, according to their model, "midsummer land temperature decreases that average 10 to 20°C in northern mid-latitudes, with local cooling as large as 35°C, and subfreezing summer temperatures in some regions" along with "disruption of monsoon precipitation and severe depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer in the Northern Hemisphere", which is pretty apocalyptic if you ask me. The temperature drop alone would basically end outdoor agriculture.

[1] R. P. Turco et.al.Climate and Smoke: An Appraisal of Nuclear Winter, Science, 247, 166–176, 1990

100 megaton of 100KT give 1000 bombs, however not sure how much flammable will matter. Normal fires or pollution rarely reach the stratosphere in huge amounts. The mushroom cloud from an large nuclear bomb does, the same does large volcanoes we have pretty good data of how much ash Krakatau caused and it pushed 21 km^3 ash and stone into the atmosphere. 
You can compare the bombs to lots of smaller and short term volcanoes, long term fires will not have much effect just the part who follow up with the mushroom cloud. 

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Oh, i've no doubt effects of massive fires would be noticeable. Eruptions of Katla, Tambora and Krakatau influenced both Europe and North America causing drastic weather anomalies. But at the same time in other areas of Earth there was no anomalies, or only minor ones. I'm not a climatologist, but i suspect in case of nuclear war constrained mostly to northern hemisphere, the areas south of the equator would face considerably smaller impact.

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14 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

100 megaton of 100KT give 1000 bombs, however not sure how much flammable will matter. Normal fires or pollution rarely reach the stratosphere in huge amounts. The mushroom cloud from an large nuclear bomb does, the same does large volcanoes we have pretty good data of how much ash Krakatau caused and it pushed 21 km^3 ash and stone into the atmosphere. 
You can compare the bombs to lots of smaller and short term volcanoes, long term fires will not have much effect just the part who follow up with the mushroom cloud. 

Well Carl Sagan, his co-author friends and their model disagree with you on that one. Firestorms are very different to a small fire. The firestorms created by nuclear strikes (i.e. the firestorm after the bombing of Hiroshima), firebombings (i.e. the firebombing of Dresden) or indeed large scale bushfires or wildfires are well known to pull soot up into the troposphere and stratosphere.

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So 200 years eh? Pretty gloomy. I want to agree with Scotus, that southern hemisphere will be less affected and will recuperate quicker, yet I feel like I'm grasping at straws here, the Earth after all is one big ecosystem, an island made of islands, and in time the the pollution will even out all around the globe, right?

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Let's be optimists. After a total nuclear war people just wouldn't live enough long to get cancer.
Because it would be a return to XIX-early XX century when a human lifespan was much shorter even without radiation.

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7 hours ago, jsisidore said:

So 200 years eh? Pretty gloomy. I want to agree with Scotus, that southern hemisphere will be less affected and will recuperate quicker, yet I feel like I'm grasping at straws here, the Earth after all is one big ecosystem, an island made of islands, and in time the the pollution will even out all around the globe, right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelter_in_place

A relevant quote from this article:

"The danger of radiation from radioactive precipitation/"fallout" decreases with time, as radioactivity decays exponentially with time, such that for each factor of seven increase in time, the radiation is reduced by a factor of ten. Creating the following 7-10 rule-of-thumb after a typical nuclear detonation while under the conditions that all fallout that will fall on the land has done so completely and no further deposition in the area will occur - After 7 hours, the average dose rate outside is reduced by a factor of ten; after 49(7x7) hours, it is reduced by a further factor of ten (to a value of 1/100th of the initial dose rate); after two weeks the radiation from the fallout will have reduced by a factor of 1000 compared to the initial level; and after 14 weeks the average dose rate will have reduced to 1/10,000th of the initial level."

It's not that bad it seems. Just look at Chernobyl - despite hefty amount of released contaminants, there is a thriving ecosystem around the power plant  - not a nuclear wasteland.

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1 hour ago, Scotius said:

It's not that bad it seems

Also don't forget that the fallout is a 1-2 km circle around GZ + the radioactive plume as a 45° wide downwind sector.
So, being in 1-2 km from GZ your probably may not worry: either you are sitting in a safe bunker... or weren't.

Outside of the close range (which is anyway devastated by shockwave and heat), you have a roulette with chances 45/360 = 1/8 to be inside the plume.
If you are - follow the post above.

 

1 hour ago, Scotius said:
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facilities like nuclear power plants are required to be equipped with audio alert systems that can be heard within a 10-mile (16 km) radius

Want such button in KSC before the launches...

Edited by kerbiloid
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2 hours ago, jsisidore said:

But will the air be breathable?

What about a massive solar plasma blast? Would that create a fallout?

The air should be breathable, there's no reason for that to change.

I'm assuming you mean a solar flare? There would be no fallout as there is no radioactive component to a solar flare. It would cause an increased exposure to high energy particles (protons and neutrons) and high energy radiation for the duration of the flare, but the Earth's magnetosphere shields us reasonably well and there are no lasting effects once the flare is over AFAIK.

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1 hour ago, Steel said:

The air should be breathable, there's no reason for that to change.

I'm assuming you mean a solar flare? There would be no fallout as there is no radioactive component to a solar flare. It would cause an increased exposure to high energy particles (protons and neutrons) and high energy radiation for the duration of the flare, but the Earth's magnetosphere shields us reasonably well and there are no lasting effects once the flare is over AFAIK.

I suppose it does. But there is a theory that Earth was hit by a rather powerful solar flare sometime around the end of the last glacial period. There's a lot of evidence too that cannot be explained in any other way.

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On 18.7.2017 at 0:22 AM, jsisidore said:

I suppose it does. But there is a theory that Earth was hit by a rather powerful solar flare sometime around the end of the last glacial period. There's a lot of evidence too that cannot be explained in any other way.

An very powerful flare might damage the ozone layer, this will increase UV radiation. This would have environmental effects. 
Today it would wreck havoc on the electricity grind, it was one back in the 19th century then the only thing was telegraphs and it did cause fires at the telegraph stations and gave the telegraphists shock. 
Not sure how much lasting impact power grind is well protected against lightning who is even more powerful but you would get an global blackout, in part this would be on purpose to protect stuff and prevent fires. 
 

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