Re: Space exploration for the rest of us

On Thu, 28 Sep 2006 18:13:47 +0200, in a place far, far away, jacob
navia <jacob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

Jeff Findley wrote:
"jacob navia" <jacob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:451b068e$0$27414$ba4acef3@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

After 1 to 1.5 years in space, humans start decaying quickly.
Their bones become brittle, space radiation destroys surely their
brain and other organs, so it is well taken point.


You're both oversimplifying and exaggerating here. The facts aren't nearly
as dramatic. That and you seem to be ignorant of engineering solutions to
eliminate the lack of acceleration on the astronauts and to reduce the
amount of radiation that actually gets to the astronauts.

Jeff

Actually the facts are that:

1) No humans have any deep space (beyond low earth orbit)
experience of more than a few DAYS.

That is a fact.

2) The need of artificial gravity + thick shielding to sustain
human missions longer than 6-8 months makes any such a project
impossible with current technology.

That is not a fact.

3) Even a small "moon base" project requires an enormous expense.

Doing almost anything in space requires an enormous expense.

You have to send HEAVY equipment to excavate the moon base
and bury it underground. If not, you have to evacuate the
moon base at each solar flare, and if you are unlucky, the
astronauts are killed when trying to reach earth.

So you send HEAVY equipment.

4) Space radiation is deadly without adequate shielding. A moon
base project needs to get completely underground.

You already said that. Why do you repeat yourself? Running out of
arguments?

5) Since artificial gravity is impossible in the moon, we
are assuming that bone loss does NOT happen in moon gravity
what is probably FALSE.

That is not a fact.

You have no basis for this statement. In any event, if it's not a
significant problem for a few months at ISS (which it apparently
isn't), it certainly won't be for a few months in a sixth gee.

6) Any serious planetary exploration is impossible since humans
are unfit for the trip, not to mention to withstand the
harsh conditions in the target planet.

That is not a fact. It's an ill-informed and illogical conjecture.
.