Re: Does Mars need women? Russians say no

From: Fred J. McCall (fmccall_at_earthlink.net)
Date: 02/14/05 

Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 06:04:45 GMT

"Rhonda Lea Kirk" <rhondalea@gmail.com> wrote:

:Fred J. McCall wrote:
:> Michael Smith wrote:
:
:>> But going to mars actually requires somebody
:>> physically small and able to live on smaller
:>> quantities of oxygen, food, etc.
:
:>> More women would satisfy this requirement than men,
:>> so using Grigoryev's own argument it should be
:>> women going to Mars.
:
:> Think 'calcium loss'. I think this affects women
:> much more severely than men.
:
:So now we're sending post-menopausal women to Mars?
:
:Seriously, women don't have a higher risk of
:osteoporosis until after menopause.

That was not my understanding of what the space medicine studies
indicated. Women under zero-g lose calcium more quickly than men do,
as I recall it. Calcium loss is pretty much THE big problem we're
aware of with prolonged exposure to zero-g. 

-- 
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
 territory."
                                      --G. Behn