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Astronauts Attach Mannequin to Outside of ISS
lhouk281 writes "According to Space.Com, astronauts have attached a mannequin to the outside of the International Space Station to study the effects of radiation on the human body. The mannequin contains actual bone surrounded by simulated organs and synthetic skin, with sensors studded throughout." There's another story that has detail on how the spacewalk went: a suit malfunction caused the spacewalk to end prematurely.
...what if air leaked out into space? That would suck!!
*ducks*
Space mannequins are made of people!
I have been pwned because my
While scientists have used Phantom-like dummies in the past aboard the space shuttle and inside the ISS, the radiation hazards of open space on sensitive body organs is still unclear.[emphasis added]
I'm just wondering how they would make claims from this - "See, the radiation at 2.5cm below the middle of the first left rib is X, therefore it will cause a mild nausea".
Sure, artificial organs would give a slightly better idea of the radiation penetration, but why would such knowledge be useful?
Ask me about repetitive DNA
Yeah right. I think it's more to "study the effect on a human body of being tied to the outside of the fucking spaceship".
Or, more specifically: "Put the fear of God into cosmonaut Josif by telling him if he forgets to put down the seat on the vacuum-toilet one more time, we're putting him out there next".
And next week, in the interest of furthering science and our understanding of the universe, the ISS will be installing a plank.
Once upon a time NASA decided to send three astronauts to space for two years.
One was American, One was Russian and the other was English.
NASA allowed each of them to take 200 pounds of baggage each.
The American decided to take along his wife, the Englishman decided to take along books to learn how to speak German, and the Russian decided to take along cigarettes.
Two years later, when the space shuttle landed, there was a big crowd waiting to welcome them home.
First came the American and his wife and each of them had a baby in their arms.
Next came the Englishman speaking fluent German. They both gave their speeches and got a rousing round of applause.
Suddenly, out came the Russian with a cigarette in his mouth. He walked up to the podium, snarled at the crowd, and asked "Has anyone got a match?"
I didn't know Janet Jackson was on the space station!
Such a shame...testing on a mannequin just isn't the same, but I guess you just make do with what you have.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
Well, here's something that might be slightly related.
Ask me about repetitive DNA
Who would have thought that the sun heated the earth through convection eh?
The sun is about 6000K: you are about 300K. Since radiation goes as the fourth power of temperature, the sun is about 20^4 times as good a radiator as a human body.
You would, of course, eventually freeze in space. But it would be many hours after you suffocated.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Obviously if you just abruptly depressurised a person, they'd form nitrogen bubbles in their blood and contract the bends, and probably die. But what if... And this is a big morbid what if... What if you slowly depressurised a person while having an oxigen mask securely (but comfortably) attached to their face? Could you eventually bring a human body down to zero atmospheres and they'd be able to stay alive?
If not, what would be the lowest limit?
Here's the mannequin. I seriously doubt that they use human bones, since animal bones of comparable size would interact with radiation in the same way.
I'm not sure what you're suggesting with ground-up bones... an ossified version of particle board?
I did research subjects related to this for a discussion on a forum a few years ago. Both the US and Russians had astronauts who suffered 'explosive decompression' down to almost no atmospheres. One was due to a large rip in a mock spacesuit, and the other due to decompression of the entire capsule they were in. Both survived, despite being decompressed for up to 45 seconds. They lost consciousness very quickly, after 10-15 seconds, and had no ill effects afterwards.
One of the problems with long term decompression is that blood vessels near the surface expand greatly... suck on the inside of your arm for an example - it happens bodywide. Not a problem for a few minutes, but it will end up bruising tissue badly after long term exposure.
Yeah, I've always thought this too. And it's mostly right -- you certainly will never see that cringe-worthy bad-sci-fi staple of liquids "freezing and boiling at the same time."
But interestingly, I discovered just last week if you take a spaceship out of direct sunshine, it starts to lose heat pretty substantially. One of the first space stations (I forget which) had its heatshield buggered up by over-early deployment and it started to overheat dramatically. An astronaut pushed an umbrella arrangement out an airlock to provide cover from the sun, and the temperature "immediately began to drop" (ok, a little obvious) and was within the expected range within a day. I saw this on "The Planets" TV show which was excellently researched, so I'd assume this was pretty valid.
In summary, radiation of heat seems to still provide a pretty good cooling mechanism in space, despite being much slower than conduction.
So while you'll be relieved to know you'll asphyxiate in comfort and warmth, you'll eventually become a corpsicle if you stay out of the sun(light).
cheers, Sal
--
Sal
Writings: saltation.blogspot.com
Wravings: go-blog-go.blogspot.com
Let's hope it does nothing, as in no space debris hits the space station.
Actually space debris and meteoroids hit ISS quite often. So far they have been very small and as you say hopefully it remains that way. ISS is designed to withstand impacts up to a certain size and probability by placing an additional wall outside the pressurised module to absorb and diffuse the impact. Learn more about the general policy in Protecting the Space Station from Meteoroids and Orbital Debris. Or see a short explanation of the Meteorid / Debris Protection System for Node 2.
- charboy