Space is Silent but Space Habitats are too Noisy

cmuncey writes "This ABCNEWS.com story by Lee Dye brings up a problem I never knew about - noise in space vehicles. In all the SF movies you get vast silent space, (broken perhaps by John Williams music, or the sound of the wookie winning at chess) but the reality is noisier, and sometimes prevents communication, work, and sleep. Both of the Russian built modules for the International Space Station are noisier than NASA safety guidelines allow (like a noisy city street) and there have been reports of permanent hearing damage on Mir. The article explains why, and what can be done about it. "

Comments

Sound *is* vibration

[unitron]

Sound is vibration, or rather vibrations that are air-coupled to your ear (or microphone) are sounds. So if you have a "phase flip the sound 180 degrees and play it back" system it should go a long way towards damping the vibrations as well. Unfortunately, one general system for the living area would tend to make conversations difficult if not impossible.

Was this story ever posted on Slashdot's main page?

Why not use active sound cancellation

[georgeha]

Some of these problems sound (sorry) like they can be remedied by using active sound suppression, get a microphone that records the sound, have a chip invert the sound and play it back through a speaker in real time, the sound waves cancel each other out.

There's still the vibration, though.

George

Re:Why not use active sound cancellation

[Crispin Glover]

Have you tried one of these active cancellation headsets at Sharper Image? It does make ambient noise quieter, but you can still feel a sort of pressure on your ears. Like when you have a head cold and know you should be hearing better than you are. It gives you the sensation you should yawn or something to clear the tubes. Even just trying them out in the store, I can't keep them on for too long. It's way too annoying.

Design some real space habitats not tin cans!

[Paul Fernhout]

Life in a tin can will almost always be noisy. But space habitats don't have to be tin cans.

For example, consider the bubble designs by Michael Savage, consisting of a large air filled bubble, a layer of plastic, six feet of water (for cosmic ray shielding) and another layer of plastic (gold coated to control glare).
http://www.luf.org/bin/vie w/GIG/GalacticInformationGuide
http://www.luf.org/

Or consider the huge O'Neill habitats.
http://www.ssi.org/space_art.html

Sometimes, you just need to so something on a big enough scale.
http://www.imax.com/films/distributi on/L5.html

NASA needs to get over its fascination on building tin can space ships to go to planets (and tin can space stations to support that). It needs to start researching and doing civil engineering in space -- making new land and cities in space.
http://www.spaceandrobotics.org/debate.h tm

At least some people at NASA get it:
http://near.jhuapl.edu/