NASA's HI-SEAS Project Results Suggests a Women-Only Mars Crew

globaljustin writes "Alan Drysdale, a systems analyst in advanced life support and a contractor with NASA concluded, "Small women haven't been demonstrated to be appreciably dumber than big women or big men, so there's no reason to choose larger people for a flight crew when it's brain power you want," says Drysdale. "The logical thing to do is to fly small women." Kate Greene, who wrote the linked article, took part in the first HI-SEAS experiment in Martian-style living, and has some compelling reasons for an all-women crew, energy efficiency chief among them: Week in and week out, the three female crew members expended less than half the calories of the three male crew members. Less than half! We were all exercising roughly the same amount—at least 45 minutes a day for five consecutive days a week—but our metabolic furnaces were calibrated in radically different ways. During one week, the most metabolically active male burned an average of 3,450 calories per day, while the least metabolically active female expended 1,475 calories per day. It was rare for a woman on crew to burn 2,000 calories in a day and common for male crew members to exceed 3,000. ... The calorie requirements of an astronaut matter significantly when planning a mission. The more food a person needs to maintain her weight on a long space journey, the more food should launch with her. The more food launched, the heavier the payload. The heavier the payload, the more fuel required to blast it into orbit and beyond. The more fuel required, the heavier the rocket becomes, which it in turn requires more fuel to launch.

Comments

Compelling, but a mix still better...

[SuperKendall]

That is a pretty compelling reason to have most of the crew women.

However I'd argue in a truly remote environment where no external help is to be had, that the raw strength a few very fit males could provide could be useful in an emergency.

Some women can also be very strong, but then would there be any metabolism benefit?

Re:Compelling, but a mix still better...

[Rei]

Despite how radical that statement sounds, it's actually perfectly reasonable for a zero-G environment. They're not only dead weight, they're also in the way and make you require larger accomodations.

Even in Mars's gravity field a legless person would deal quite well, at least inside the facility (picture how easily you could get around without your legs if you suddenly were given 2.5x the arm strength, didn't have your legs weighing you down, and on top of that add in how most double amputees already have good arm strength to begin with). They should be able to "hop" with their arms all the way to a 2 1/2 meter ceiling without trouble, and the full arc would take a good two seconds to come back down. On the moon it'd be even easier. Of course, if they're legless, why would they even need such tall ceilings to begin with?

Re:oh man

[Sepodati]

Why not an all midget crew?

Re:So?

[Khashishi]

And how does the most metabolically active female compare to the least metabolically active male?

Women prefer male bosses

[popo]

No really. Before you mod this flamebait, check the studies. It's 100% true. Statistically speaking (well, at least according to several large surveys), most women actually do prefer male authority in the work-place.

http://www.businessweek.com/ar...

And there are thousands of nightmare tales about all female workplaces...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/fem...

Of course such statistics and stories will forever be dismissed by social justice warriors... And there are many here on Slashdot.

Razor Edge

[Baby Duck]

If your Mars mission is cutting it so close that the calorie requirement between men and women is a major factor ... maybe that's a sign no one should go using your plan.

myopic analysis & sexism

[globaljustin]

The problem w/ the "women only" conclusion is that it myopically focuses on **ONE** factor as if it is the determining factor in mission success.

Part of this is the fault of NASA admin/beauracracy: "We can't spare the weight" is an excuse for all kinds of ideas NASA wanted to kill...

"Too heavy" is almost a trope in NASA/space circles...it's the go-to way for beauracrats to make their presence known.

As others have pointed out, weight and food requirements are not a determining factor in mission success.

At best, the "weight is everything" mentality is obsolete...IMHO it was never about weight ultimately (of course it matters to mission planning)...it was just a handy excuse.

Also...there is some misplaced feminism here...women have been dismissed from science b/c sexism for centuries, and often the reasons given are something **other than gender**...a beaurecratic answer that belies the real motivation for the decision.

All in all, dumb analysis like in TFA are a legacy of sexism and bad beaurecratic management...it's like the sexism equivalent of what the CIA calls "blowback"

Re:Food is not the limiting factor

[Rei]

That is, of course, for a given radiation dose, which is independent of body cross section - which is relevant in real-world scenarios. If we assume an isotropic radiation exposure profile, an average male height of 174cm, an average female height of 161 cm, and asssume an equivalent profile, then a man presents a 17% higher profile to radiation exposurediation exposure, so if a woman has a 50% higher (150%) cancer risk, then it's only 29% higher for a fixed radiation flux per square meter.

However, let's look further at this. Given the smaller size of members of a female crew, you can shrink the spacecraft occupant space by 8% on each axis, or a volumetric decrease of 26%. Mass changes are more difficult to reckon. Life support, food, water, etc is dependent on metabolism, which the article shows is dramatically lower for women in space. Fuel needs are proportional to all other mass issues. Only a few things (such as computers and scientific equipment) don't trace back to crew member size and mass. Regardless, for a given launch weight, it's clear that you can afford the mass of a significantly increased amount of radiation shielding for a female crew due to the weight savings elsewhere, probably easily more than offsetting the cancer risk.

Beyond this, the average US astronaut age is 34, an age well after when most women are done having children (assuming that they even want to have children). Given that the article states the risk is from breast, ovarian, and utirine cancer, I wouldn't be surprised if many would consider full hysterectomy for the ability to travel to Mars.