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I found this interesting picture

TechnicalK3rbal

By TechnicalK3rbal
in Science & Spaceflight

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vger

vger

Posted
Posted
Hmm... if only the selfie had been invented in 1969...

When I saw that link, I literally felt my jaw drop. I almost shed a tear... That is very heavy to think about.

Quite a unique perspective. Actually took me a few seconds before the reality of it hit me, and I'm usually an "outside the box" type of thinker. Sobering.

Made me wonder what kind of thoughts would be going through my head if I were the guy chilling in the dark on board the CM.

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PakledHostage

PakledHostage

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Posted

Poor Michael Collins....

Unless he takes delight?

A lot of people say that, but talk about the ultimate "glass is half empty" perspective... Michael Collins flew to the bloody moon! Heck, according to his own words in his book "Carrying the Fire", he would likely have commanded Apollo 17 had he stayed in the astronaut program. He chose to retire instead. Clearly he was satisfied with his achievements as an astronaut.

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Dkmdlb

Dkmdlb

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Anyone have a link to the original picture? I`m looking for a hi-res version for my desktop.

Open up a new window side by side. Go to google.com/images. Click and drag this image into the search box. This will pull up similar images. If you do this, you will find a nice hi-res version here.

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Tex_NL

Tex_NL

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And anyway, the material for everyone since was there! :wink:

Not exactly. Since that time a lot of meteorites have crashed into earths atmosphere. In theory material from those meteorites could have ended up in people. :wink:

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KASASpace

KASASpace

Posted
Posted
A lot of people say that, but talk about the ultimate "glass is half empty" perspective... Michael Collins flew to the bloody moon! Heck, according to his own words in his book "Carrying the Fire", he would likely have commanded Apollo 17 had he stayed in the astronaut program. He chose to retire instead. Clearly he was satisfied with his achievements as an astronaut.

Hmm,

I suppose so.

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-Velocity-

-Velocity-

Posted
Posted (edited)
Not exactly. Since that time a lot of meteorites have crashed into earths atmosphere. In theory material from those meteorites could have ended up in people. :wink:

Heh, beat me to it, I was just going to point that out.

Well, not just in theory, you certainly are composed of atoms that did not exist on Earth in 1970 or whenever that picture was taken. But the overwhelming fraction of you was in fact contained in that picture.

On the flip side, since the atmosphere is continuously (but slowly, thankfully) leaking into space, some of the atoms that composed the people that are contained in that picture most certainly do not exist on Earth any more. Furthermore, since your body is like the "ship of Theseus", a huge fraction of the atoms and molecules that composed your body 10 years ago are no longer there. Some of them have undoubtably found their way into other living creatures, and a tiny fraction of them have even escaped into space and left Earth forever.

I'm sure we do have atoms in our bodies that, once there, stay there pretty much our entire lives (specifically, in our bones), but a lot of the rest of us is continuously repaired, rebuilt, and replaced. Thus, I believe the idea that our consciousness is tied to a specific set of atoms is fallacy. Our consciousness is tied to the information stored and processed in our brain, and should be transferable and (most likely) copy-able to any equivalent and compatible computing machine. That is, after all, what your body is slowly doing every day, all throughout your life.

I would be curious to learn whether (and if so, at what rate) the proteins that build your cellular structure are slowly replaced or rebuilt... and what fraction of atoms in our bodies are more-or-less permanent "residents" for life?

Edited by |Velocity|
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softweir

softweir

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Um... all the people born since then weren't in the picture.

And yet, though many have been born since, they are stuck on Earth, on that pale, blue disc which is stuck well inside the frame of the image. Time will only invalidate that caption if we manage to send people back out into interplanetary space.

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Firov

Firov

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Posted (edited)
I'm sure we do have atoms in our bodies that, once there, stay there pretty much our entire lives (specifically, in our bones), but a lot of the rest of us is continuously repaired, rebuilt, and replaced.

Interesting bit of trivia, even our skeletal structure is constantly being dissolved and rebuilt by special purpose cells called Osteoclasts (dissolvers) and Osteoblasts (builders). In adults, this happens at a rate of around 10% of your skeleton per year.

So over time your entire skeleton is replaced, and even in old age no part of your skeleton should be more than 20 years old.

To my (admittedly limited) knowledge there are very few cell types in the human body that aren't replaced over time. Even tissues that were thought to be static, such as cardiac muscle, have recently been found to regenerate very slowly at a rate of roughly 1% per year. So if you're looking for tissue that isn't changed and replaced over time, I'd look towards your nervous system.

Edited by Firov
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