'Mouse-Tronaughts' to Test Low-Gravity in Space

RandBlade writes "The Telegraph has an article about plans to launch mice into space with simulated low-gravity for five weeks, to test the effects of low-gravity on their bodies. This "will be the first time mammals of any kind have lived in partial gravity for an extended period." Hopes are that this will provide information useful for plans to launch men to Mars, which has one-third of the gravity of Earth."

Comments

First time for mammals

[baryon351]

> This "will be the first time mammals of any kind have lived in > partial gravity for an extended period."

As opposed to those reptilian astronauts.

Re:First time for mammals

[hokanomono]

The point is: there is no documented experiment of humans living in partial gravity for an extended period.

Re:First time for mammals

[rocketsled]

Yeah, but who gets to clean the cage?

Pardon?

[Wingchild]

This "will be the first time mammals of any kind have lived in partial gravity for an extended period."

Skylab? Mir? The International Space Station? People coming back from hundred-day tours in space, their muscles weak from Low-G muscle atrophy, having to undergo extended rehabilitation and physical therapy to rebuild muscle mass after coming earthside?

Did I imagine all that?

Re:Pardon?

[worst_name_ever]

RTFA... partial gravity != microgravity.

Re:Pardon?

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

I think you missed the bit about "simulated low gravity." They're not going to be in "zero-g" or microgravity.

The point of the experiment, if I understand it correctly, is to determine to what degree a low gravity (as opposed to micro-gravity, which is what the space stations experience) environment differs in effect on mammals from Full Gravity and Micro-gravity environments.

Mouse-Tronaughts?

[Tirel]

so people in space are what? Homo-tronaughts?

Re:Mouse-Tronaughts?

[NanoGator]

"so people in space are what? Homo-tronaughts? "

That's what we were prepared to call Lance Bass.

'naut' == 'naught'?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not!

Reproduction in space

[tjstork]

Can people reproduce on other planets? Can any earth creature? We can conceivably provide a breathable habitat, running water, etc. But, it is becoming clear that gravity plays a fairly strong role in the development of living things from fertilized egg to adulthood. Perhaps it might be impossible to reproduce on the moon or mars, because there is not enough gravity. Or, maybe you can but there will be a statistical risk of some undiscovered birth defect.

It may turn out that the only viable planet to really colonize is Venus, then, it becomes a question of, what do we do with 10^20 tons of carbon dioxide!

Re:Reproduction in space

[the_2nd_coming]

if anything, babies would be larger due to the ability to grow larger with fewer bad effects.

in that case, humans on the moon would be taller but weaker than earth humans and perhaps one day be diffrent enough that they would be considered a diffrent species.

Re:Reproduction in space

[cowscows]

You build a huge tube from venus to mars, throw in a few pumps, and move the CO2 over to the red planet! Viola! Two planets terrarformed for the price of one!

Re:Reproduction in space

[Pedrito]

Can people reproduce on other planets? Can any earth creature?

There's no reason that human babies couldn't be conceived and come to term in low or even zero-g. Yes, it's been done with other 'Earth creatures'. Besides some insects, there were some fish that were bred on Skylab, I believe. As I recall, the Earth born parents were unable to control their swimming in zero-g, but the babies had no problem. I assume human babies would also adapt natural abilities in zero and low-g that astronauts learn to clumsily do.

But the fact is, human bodies are poorly adapter to low and zero-g for several reasons. Radiation and muscle atrophy are one problem, but bone loss is another serious problem. Thus it's likely that any humans or other complex animals born in zero or low-g wouldn't live very long. Probably not even long enough to reproduce.

The only way for humans to evolve to be able to surivive would be for the conditions of low-g living to be slowly introduced over many generations or to somehow short-cut evolution.

Re:Reproduction in space

[Richard W.M. Jones]

Can people reproduce on other planets? Can any earth creature?

I don't know, but I'm willing to give it a try!

Rich.

Re:Reproduction in space

[dfeist]

First, radiation is independant of low-g. Although they may of course occur together.

But have you thought about that bone "loss" (much more that the bones will grow less from the beginning) is maybe not even a problem under those conditions? That the human body simply adapts to the conditions of its environment? Bones we need on the earth would be overkill on the moon! Same is valid for muscles.

Re:Reproduction in space

[Textbook Error]

Bones we need on the earth would be overkill on the moon! Same is valid for muscles

That could well be true, however a lifetime of zero-g could mean you would never be able to leave space (so you'd have the same problem, in reverse).

As soon as you tried to land on a planetary body with noticeable gravity, your skeleton would probably be unable to support your own weight. Unless you also underwent significant weight loss - in which case you would find yourself abnormally frail, and could easily suffer a fatal bone fracture to something like your rib-cage or skull (weaker bones combined with lack of surrounding fat/muscle).

Re:Reproduction in space

[orthogonal]

if anything, babies would be larger due to the ability to grow larger with fewer bad effects.

Thank you Doctor.

But seriously folks, we just don't know.

We do know that evolution makes a lot of assumptions about an organism's environment, and that gravity is one assumption that could be strongly relied on for the last three billion years, from the origin of life on earth until Laika's the dog's first orbit in 1957.

We also know that the genetic sequencer, as long as it is, is nowhere near long enough to provide an actual "blueprint" of the organism being built. The human genome is approximately 3.2 billion base pairs long, but the number of -- for example -- neurons in the human brain is perhaps 100 billion, making for the possibility of as many as 100 billion squared connections between neurons. There is simply not enough information in the genome to specify the type, position, or inter-connections of every neuron in the brain, much less every cell in the body.

How then, is a body built from the genetic code? The short is answer is that we don't (yet) fully know; the longer answer is that the genome does specify certain rules by which certain cells express certain parts of the genome, grow in certain directions, etc.

One typical strategy governing cell growth is a "tropism", growth toward or away from a particular environmental stimulus. Geotropism, growth toward the earth, is almost certainly mediated by gravity (as opposed to sensing the earth in some less obvious way).

It would be amazing if animal embryogenesis -- the growth of the baby organism -- did not involve geotropism to some degree. (We already know that the growth of plants and their seeds do rely on geotropism -- this is how roots grow down and stalks grow up). How geotropism is involved in animal embryogenesis, how and to what extent the developing embryo would be affected by reduced gravity -- all are unanswered questions.

A facile answer that lower gravity would means bigger babies with "fewer bad effects" isn't an answer at all; that is to say, the answer might even (though I doubt it) turn out to be right, but the answer is not reasoned.

Re:Reproduction in space

[Peale]

It may turn out that the only viable planet to really colonize is Venus, then, it becomes a question of, what do we do with 10^20 tons of carbon dioxide!

Make a lot of soda pop.

Re:Reproduction in space

[tgd]

I'm not sure why that was modded up, as its genereally wrong.

To be more accurate, bone loss and muscular atrophy aren't problems in space, they're problems when you leave space. They don't degrade because you're in space, they degrade because you don't need them.

There's NO evidence that medically someone who lived in 1/3g and stayed there would have any more problems than here.

In zero G, sure some muscles will atrophy, the ones you don't need. Your skeleton weakens, because it doesn't NEED to be as strong.

Re:Reproduction in space

[orthogonal]

Can people reproduce on other planets? Can any earth creature?

I don't know, but I'm willing to give it a try!

Rich.

Rich, Rich, Rich.

NASA, given its recent history, really needs more successes to name. Do you really think the first humans NASA will pick to reproduce on other planers will be Slashdot posters?

At the very least, NASA is going to want people with experience procreating -- or those having had the opportunity to procreate -- here on Earth.

Re:Reproduction in space

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Floating in the womb, surrounded by amniotic fluid considerably denser than water, is as close as most humans ever come to living in 0-g. I suspect that of all portions of the human life cycle, fetal development would be the least impacted by taking place in low gravity. (And pregnancy, and delivery, would probably be a lot less unpleasant for the mother, too.) OTOH, once the babies are born, we're going to have to figure out how to get them lots of exercise so their muscles and skeletons develop somewhere near normally. Adults can always spend more time in the gym to compensate; it's hard to persuade an infant to hit the bench. ;)

Re:Reproduction in space

[DrLudicrous]

I hope your tube is heat-resistent, because when mars and venus are on opposite sides of the sun, guess what happens?

Re:Reproduction in space

[Tachys]

humans on the moon would be taller but weaker than earth humans and perhaps one day be diffrent enough that they would be considered a diffrent species.

So basically they will become elves?

Animal Cruelty

[queen of everything]

I'm sure we'll have lots of posts about "animal cruelty". Is it better to test on mice or humans? Which life is worth more? Would it be fair to send humans to Mars and just watch their bodies essentially turn to jello from the lack of gravity? Those that spent time on the ISS are dealing with the consequences of little or no gravity for an extended period of time.

I'm not saying that it is necessarily "right" to test on animals, but from a scientific point of view, it will bring us much closer to knowing the effect of the conditions on Mars and will bring us closer to having manned missions and even maybe a space station there one day.

Re:Animal Cruelty

[roy23]

At least the humans would have a choice.

"Our task must be to free ourselves... by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and it's beauty."
- Albert Einstein

Roy.

I remember doing this

[ReidMaynard]

with those solid rocket kits back in the 1960's.

We did it with hamsters, if I remember the control hamster got fatter than astro-hamster, but since there were just the two hamsters, well ...

Re:I remember doing this

[nacturation]

We did it with hamsters, if I remember the control hamster got fatter than astro-hamster, but since there were just the two hamsters, well ...

You misspelled flatter.

Muscle/Bone loss

[Richard Allen]

I was wondering if any Slashdotters new if the muscle and bone loss is only a problem if the astronaut returns to earth, or even if they stay in the low gravity environment.

(On a side note, make sure you check out the caption in the article.)

You mean astromouse ?

[theefer]

The word astronauts come from the greek : astro (stars), nautike (navigation). So astronaut litteraly means star navigator, and mouse-tronaut would mean mouse navigator, which lacks some sense here.

I'd rather have said astro-mouse (star mouse) instead. Or if anyone has the greek word for mouse ...

Re:You mean astromouse ?

[NonSequor]

Actually astrum (star), is Latin. And nauta is Latin for sailor. So you need the Latin word for mouse which is mus (pronounced like the English word moose).

Enhanced Gravity

[vontrotsky]

In high school I did a project which involved growing plants in simulated hypergravity (produced by centripetal acceleration), then tried to extrapolated into the low gravity regime.

Up to 140% of normal, the plants grew faster with increasing "gravity". From this I reasoned that lower gravity conditions (moon, mars) would be healthy for plants.

Of course, NASA's results may vary. Especially when using mice.

Jeff

Re:They contradict themselves in the article

[nomadic]

Oh, wait a sec - it's the Daily Telegraph. Seriously, it's like the British newspaper equivalent of Slashdot.

So the readers actually do all the work of writing articles, and tomorrow's edition will have the same exact story?

Greek for mouse

[kyknos.org]

greek for mouse is mys ... so it is an astromys :o)

isn't this pointless?

[bob_jenkins]

I would have thought the effects of gravity scale with weight. Mice are so small, they're nearly surface-oriented instead of gravity-oriented anyhow. They've got almost no gravity-induced features in the first place.

Re:isn't this pointless?

[madpierre]

Hamster + Wheel + Dynamo = Electricity

No more flat batteries in our mars rovers.
And as a bonus the Hamster could be trained
to re-boot the cpu in case of glitches.

Re:They contradict themselves in the article

[Mwongozi]

Or you could try reading the article. Partial gravity is not the same as a weightless environment.

KFM - its preparation for spacefood

[Tandoori Haggis]

When you get to Mars you'll want something to eat that doesn't squeeze out of a tube. Kentucky Fried Mice could be a start. First colonise the mice then
modify them to grow as big as rats.

Yum Yum

Re:They contradict themselves in the article

[Anonymous Coward]

*thwap*

zero gravity != partial gravity

Go thwap yourself then. Gravity is never equal to zero. Every object in the universe attracts every other. If you have a calculator, determine the force from gravity applied to a human on earth. Then, calculate again from 1,000 km away. It's a small difference.

In orbit, you experience weightlessness. IE, if you are travelling at 20,000 km/hour around the earth, and everything else on your spaceship is travelling at the same velocity, from your point of view you experience weightlessness. From earth, watching the spacecraft, everything looks normal.

Go read a high school physics book, will you? Pay attention to frames of reference.

Mars society

[WindBourne]

is behind this. They are planning on succesfully longer trips and at varying amounts. Hopefully, NASA, et. al. will design a platform to place on the ISS which will do this constantly.

you are wrong

[kyknos.org]

astronaut is of greek origin indeed. latin for star is stella

Mice in space?

[FrostedWheat]

They're Pinky and the Brain?

Pinky: What are we gonna to tommorow night Brain?
Brain: Same thing we do every night Pinky. Try to take over the space capsule!

Re:How are the mice supposed..

[Anonymous Coward]

1.) it's not floating, there's microgravity, so while it won't be firmly attached to the ground, it will get there eventually.

2.) you can't swim in space. swimming requires pushing against something (usually water), and it would take one hell of a lot of paddling to push enough air to push yourself.

3.) I'm sure they'll come up with some way of feeding the mice. They usually do think of almost everything for these missions, and I'm sure the article didn't want to talk about such a mundane and trivial topic.

Mice leaving...

[criordan]

Mice leaving the planet... what do they know that we don't?

One difference...

[Gudlyf]

...is that humans won't be floating around in low-gravity with five weeks of their own feces flying around them. Have you ever seen the amount of dung those little buggers put out on an hourly basis?! It's absurd! How do they plan to handle that?

Actually nevermind, I probably don't want to know.

Re:One difference...

[Artifakt]

Foo still falls through wire screen floors in 1/3 G nicely. Even for older experiments in microgravity, a small downward air flow, adding only about a 0.5 cm/second/second to the forces acting on the mouse, was enough to keep things about as clean as most privately owned mice have it.

i think there's been a misunderstanding

[real_smiff]

People in space *are* Astronauts (from the greek astron, meaning star, and naut, meaning sailor).

Unfortunately this means 'Mousetronauts' are people who sail into mice. Right, perhaps someone should call the paper.

Re:i think there's been a misunderstanding

[Zalgon 26 McGee]

So what should we call Richard Gere?

Re:i think there's been a misunderstanding

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

Well technically speaking, his gerbil would be an Ass-tronaut.

Just a means of escape...

[interactive_civilian]

Those mice are just so damn clever.

Obviously, this is simply a means for more of them to escape and take data back to their own dimension before the Earth is destroyed to make way for a hyperspatial bypass route 5 minutes before its task is complete.

Cursed Vogons.

Of course, pretty soon NASA will be wishing that they had gotten us to Alpha Centauri to file our complaints...oh well...at least they won't be bitter for very long...

;-)

Re:They contradict themselves in the article

[blorg]

... and tomorrow's edition will have the same exact story?

If the story is complaining about immigration or the European Union, then yes, you have a very good chance.

Re:They contradict themselves in the article

[lokedhs]

"this is slashdot" is the slashdot version of godwins law.

Re:They contradict themselves in the article

[NeoThermic]

>> If you have a calculator, determine the force from gravity applied to a human on earth. Then, calculate again from 1,000 km away. It's a small difference.

Sure! I'm Game!


Now, if a body of mass m is a distance r from the center of the earth, you know that the weight of the body is F given by the formula F=GmM/r^2 The gravitaional field strength is g = F/m = (GmM/r^2)/m = GM/r^2

(With me sofar?)

g=GM/r^2
= 6.7 * 10^-11 N m^2 kg^-2 * 6.0 * 10^24 kg/(6.4 * 10^6)^2
= 9.814 N kg^-1

Notice! We get a value which is gravity at earths surface...

Ok, so with the poster above... lets add on our 1,000 km ...

g=GM/r^2
= 6.7 * 10^-11 N m^2 kg^-2 * 6.0 * 10^24 kg/(6.401 * 10^6)^2
= 9.811 N kg^-1
Yes, we lost all of 0.001 N kg^-1... our poster above is right.

So, how can they make this worth while? Easy. Make them do a larger orbit, so that they are twice the distance r from the earth (notice above, you have to measure from the center of the earth...)

So, lets see how much N kg-1 our mice would have if they were twice as far out...

g=GM/r^2
= 6.7 * 10^-11 N m^2 kg^-2 * 6.0 * 10^24 kg/(12.8 * 10^6)^2
= 2.453 N kg^-1

Anyway, enough maths...
NeoThermic

MOD PARENT UP

[MtlDty]

The first thing I thought of when I saw the mice/space thing was HHGTTG. And I had to scroll all the way down to find a comment linking the two, AND ITS MODDED OFFTOPIC??

Surely the only reason this news hit slashdot is the obvious H2G2 reference?

This Is Good News

[schnarff]

I attended a lecture by Dr. Robert Zubrin, widely known for his Mars Direct plan, this past Friday at the National Geographic Society HQ in Washington, DC, where he made the good point that we need research on artificial gravity for missions to Mars much more than we do research on zero-gravity. Basically, the reasoning is that on a 2.5 year Mars mission, 1.5 years would be in Mars gravity, and the transit time would likely be spent in a 1-G artificial environment, since zero-G deconditioning for a 6-month trip would leave astronauts in poor shape to do their research on Mars once they got there. Since acheiving an artificial 1-G environment is easy through the use of centripital force, I'm glad to see at least the first steps in this sort of research are being done.

Re:No matter which way you slice it, he's still wr

[Cappy Red]

I wish I could say I was beginning to wonder when PIE was going to come into it. I wish that, and I bow my head in shame for not wondering that.

*honk*

Re:You only added 1km, not 1000km.

[NeoThermic]

Ohh, right, good eyes...
thats the effect of having the units in m in the equation and forgetting that your challenge has been set at 1000km

g=GM/r^2
= 6.7 * 10^-11 N m^2 kg^-2 * 6.0 * 10^24 kg/(7.4 * 10^6)^2
= 7.341 N kg^-1

So a diffrence of 2.473 N kg^-1

NeoThermic