NASA reduces average payload weight without sacrificing capabilities
January 22, 2016 9:43 AM Subscribe
For the first time [ever], NASA’s latest class of astronauts is 50 percent female. And, NASA has announced, in 15 years they could all be selected for an inaugural trip to Mars.
If you're upset about it being in Glamour (which I don't think you should be, despite understanding the impulse that led you there), you'd probably be really upset about my initial idea for a first comment which was just going to be a blind link to the 1991 CeCe Peniston classic "Finally."
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:00 AM on January 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:00 AM on January 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
Sorta reminds me of the discovery a few months ago of the Homo Naledi fossils in South Africa --- there's a photo of the only anthropologists with the expertise and the caving skills (as well as being just plain scrawny enough to fit through the 7-inch tunnels!) necessary to get to where those fossils were found: all six were women.
Yeah, I enjoyed the heck out of that one, too: sort of a take that sexist jerks!
posted by easily confused at 10:23 AM on January 22, 2016 [5 favorites]
Yeah, I enjoyed the heck out of that one, too: sort of a take that sexist jerks!
posted by easily confused at 10:23 AM on January 22, 2016 [5 favorites]
Christina Hammock Koch: "When the opportunity to spend a year at the South Pole came up, I took it. There I was in charge of more than 10,000 gallons of liquid helium to keep the telescopes supercool. Our motto was "When the South Pole isn't cold enough, call us.""
That just made me LOL, what a cool job. (Pun not intended but wholeheartedly approved.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:28 AM on January 22, 2016 [10 favorites]
That just made me LOL, what a cool job. (Pun not intended but wholeheartedly approved.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:28 AM on January 22, 2016 [10 favorites]
Cool. I guess Mars really does need women.
posted by loquacious at 10:30 AM on January 22, 2016 [12 favorites]
posted by loquacious at 10:30 AM on January 22, 2016 [12 favorites]
Sorta reminds me of the discovery a few months ago of the Homo Naledi fossils in South Africa
ChuraChura had a great write-up on that in the related thread.
Yeah, I enjoyed the heck out of that one, too: sort of a take that sexist jerks!
I haven't followed any of the Mars One coverage, but it sounds like sexist jerks and their questions come up a lot for women, and I applaud Sonia Van Meter's husband for pointing out [WaPo] no talks about the male astronauts who are married and have kids abandoning their families or other such things.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:42 AM on January 22, 2016 [3 favorites]
ChuraChura had a great write-up on that in the related thread.
Yeah, I enjoyed the heck out of that one, too: sort of a take that sexist jerks!
I haven't followed any of the Mars One coverage, but it sounds like sexist jerks and their questions come up a lot for women, and I applaud Sonia Van Meter's husband for pointing out [WaPo] no talks about the male astronauts who are married and have kids abandoning their families or other such things.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:42 AM on January 22, 2016 [3 favorites]
Cool on the 50% but the "NASA has announced, in 15 years they could all be selected for an inaugural trip to Mars" is incredibly awkwardly phrased and hugely misleading.
There's not much of mission plan in terms of vehicles or number of crew, so the RA RA RA, they're all going to Mars is just bad journalism. Hell, the last class of NASA astronauts had 14 members, who are already ahead of them and potential Mars astronauts.
The fact that female astronauts generally weight less and consume less calories i.e. resources is interesting and from one point of view makes sense to send an all female crew. But I'd be surprised if that happens, as these aren't the sole deciding characteristics.
Thank you for listening to this pedantic comment.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:42 AM on January 22, 2016
There's not much of mission plan in terms of vehicles or number of crew, so the RA RA RA, they're all going to Mars is just bad journalism. Hell, the last class of NASA astronauts had 14 members, who are already ahead of them and potential Mars astronauts.
The fact that female astronauts generally weight less and consume less calories i.e. resources is interesting and from one point of view makes sense to send an all female crew. But I'd be surprised if that happens, as these aren't the sole deciding characteristics.
Thank you for listening to this pedantic comment.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:42 AM on January 22, 2016
Also, the significant weight reduction was pretty high on my list of reasons why NASA should have sent me to space when I was about 12. I can't have been the only space mad kid who figured this out.
Seriously, NASA. I could have repaired the Hubble in half the time, half the weight, half the food. My hands were tiny and agile from playing with Lego and building aircraft models. I spent way more time upside down sideways but perfectly oriented on a skate board then some old Navy dude in a T-38. And for that matter, you should have seen me in Flight Simulator barnstorming inverted under bridges into perfect outside loops and Immelmans in a Cessna.
Hell, my personal astronaut training regimen involved not just extremes like rolling down steep hills in old barrels and tires or piloting nearly anything that had at least one wheel on it, but several arguably successful moments of human powered flight.
And I'm still available, NASA. I'm not so small any more, but I reckon I could just leave my legs behind and just install a hook or some velcro down there on the stump, maybe an adapter plate for a tripod mount or something. Call me!
posted by loquacious at 10:49 AM on January 22, 2016 [15 favorites]
Seriously, NASA. I could have repaired the Hubble in half the time, half the weight, half the food. My hands were tiny and agile from playing with Lego and building aircraft models. I spent way more time upside down sideways but perfectly oriented on a skate board then some old Navy dude in a T-38. And for that matter, you should have seen me in Flight Simulator barnstorming inverted under bridges into perfect outside loops and Immelmans in a Cessna.
Hell, my personal astronaut training regimen involved not just extremes like rolling down steep hills in old barrels and tires or piloting nearly anything that had at least one wheel on it, but several arguably successful moments of human powered flight.
And I'm still available, NASA. I'm not so small any more, but I reckon I could just leave my legs behind and just install a hook or some velcro down there on the stump, maybe an adapter plate for a tripod mount or something. Call me!
posted by loquacious at 10:49 AM on January 22, 2016 [15 favorites]
Yes but what would they do without makeup and men on such a long trip?!??!?
posted by ian1977 at 10:49 AM on January 22, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by ian1977 at 10:49 AM on January 22, 2016 [4 favorites]
Yeah, given the number of potential problems with a Mars trip (previously on the blue), going, "Yeah! We'll send the women!" is possibly a bit ominous.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:59 AM on January 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:59 AM on January 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
In the future, all the astronauts are the size of today's jockeys.
posted by T.D. Strange at 12:57 PM on January 22, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by T.D. Strange at 12:57 PM on January 22, 2016 [1 favorite]
"When the opportunity to spend a year at the South Pole came up..."
Back in my day, that was a punishment!
posted by blue_beetle at 1:36 PM on January 22, 2016
Back in my day, that was a punishment!
posted by blue_beetle at 1:36 PM on January 22, 2016
Yeah, I'd love it if we could get away from "they're qualified because women's bnodies are small!" as justification or publicity for women scientists. My friend who was on the Homo naledi expedition team is actually a good 8 inches taller than me, and was chosen because she's an archaeologist who is also an accomplished caver. Not because she is "scrawny."
posted by ChuraChura at 3:26 PM on January 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by ChuraChura at 3:26 PM on January 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
I've had a few interesting conversations with my sister around physiological considerations with male vs. female crew on various space missions (for the record she's something of an astronaut fangirl, and an officer in the USAF space command, so when I say that I'm having a conversation with her about space, I mean mostly that she's telling me about how stuff works/happens in space, and I ask her questions because space is cool and I want to learn more about the nitty-gritty of it).
Anyhow, in addition to the expected "women are smaller on average, and typically mean less payload for the same competence", there are a few other notable physiological differences that have come up. There are two notable differences for long-term missions that I remember discussing with her: one going each way:
The difference in favour of the men is that they can tolerate more exposure to cosmic radiation. As things currently stand, a one-way Earth-Mars trip would exceed the allowable radiation doses for both men and women, but keeping the men from getting radiation poisoning on the way there will not involve having to install quite so much shielding.
The difference in favour of the women is that long-term microgravity tends to deform human eyeballs in both men and women (so far, these deformities undo themselves after returning to normal Earth gravity), but for some reason, the deformity is disabling in men but not in women. As things currently stand, the sample size of astronauts who have experienced vision impairment or loss from this eyeball stretching/smooshing is pretty small, so the p-value on current data as a test of "only men suffer from this disability" probably isn't fantastic, but it also seems like a harder problem to address than radiation exposure.
Either way, those differences are both tied to some pretty serious "we have to figure out how to prevent/fix this" problems that need solving before any Mars mission. There are almost certainly other technical arguments for preferring one sex over the other (even for missions that remain in orbit around Earth), but I haven't learned about them yet. Food for thought on the topic nonetheless...
posted by kiwano at 5:32 PM on January 22, 2016 [4 favorites]
Anyhow, in addition to the expected "women are smaller on average, and typically mean less payload for the same competence", there are a few other notable physiological differences that have come up. There are two notable differences for long-term missions that I remember discussing with her: one going each way:
The difference in favour of the men is that they can tolerate more exposure to cosmic radiation. As things currently stand, a one-way Earth-Mars trip would exceed the allowable radiation doses for both men and women, but keeping the men from getting radiation poisoning on the way there will not involve having to install quite so much shielding.
The difference in favour of the women is that long-term microgravity tends to deform human eyeballs in both men and women (so far, these deformities undo themselves after returning to normal Earth gravity), but for some reason, the deformity is disabling in men but not in women. As things currently stand, the sample size of astronauts who have experienced vision impairment or loss from this eyeball stretching/smooshing is pretty small, so the p-value on current data as a test of "only men suffer from this disability" probably isn't fantastic, but it also seems like a harder problem to address than radiation exposure.
Either way, those differences are both tied to some pretty serious "we have to figure out how to prevent/fix this" problems that need solving before any Mars mission. There are almost certainly other technical arguments for preferring one sex over the other (even for missions that remain in orbit around Earth), but I haven't learned about them yet. Food for thought on the topic nonetheless...
posted by kiwano at 5:32 PM on January 22, 2016 [4 favorites]
The first man to walk on the moon said, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." What should the first man to walk on Mars say?
"Nice speech, Commander."
posted by officer_fred at 5:33 PM on January 22, 2016 [3 favorites]
"Nice speech, Commander."
posted by officer_fred at 5:33 PM on January 22, 2016 [3 favorites]
I suspect there's a pretty good psychological argument for including both men and women on such a long trip, kiwano. NASA probably has and will continue to look at the psychological effects in some depth.
posted by Justinian at 7:38 PM on January 22, 2016
posted by Justinian at 7:38 PM on January 22, 2016
Fifteen years to Mars? Come on, NASA, don't lie to me. You've been working on the Space Launch System since 2010. It was supposed to be the fast path to get us back into Low Earth Orbit using existing, tested hardware. But here we are more than five years later and you're still testing engines on the ground.
posted by foobaz at 9:34 PM on January 22, 2016
posted by foobaz at 9:34 PM on January 22, 2016
In one incident a man made unwanted sexual advances toward a woman in the other group, and they decided to shut the hatch between the two groups. It's something NASA has to think about if they're going to send men and women to space together for three years.
WTF WHY. WHY. WHY. STOP DOING THAT.
I feel like we don't deserve to go to space, as a species. I know space exploration is good for everyone and advancing science and so forth but I feel like we aren't good enough for the good things that come from it. Look at the shit we can't stop ourselves from doing. We couldn't even figure out how to not choose candidates who would pull this sort of shit. We're still sitting around going "Har har har women are small that's why we need their tiny bodies for science". Give me a break.
posted by bleep at 1:43 AM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
WTF WHY. WHY. WHY. STOP DOING THAT.
I feel like we don't deserve to go to space, as a species. I know space exploration is good for everyone and advancing science and so forth but I feel like we aren't good enough for the good things that come from it. Look at the shit we can't stop ourselves from doing. We couldn't even figure out how to not choose candidates who would pull this sort of shit. We're still sitting around going "Har har har women are small that's why we need their tiny bodies for science". Give me a break.
posted by bleep at 1:43 AM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
What should the first man to walk on Mars say?
"Well, here we are", surely.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 11:29 AM on January 23, 2016
"Well, here we are", surely.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 11:29 AM on January 23, 2016
We couldn't even figure out how to not choose candidates who would pull this sort of shit.
Keep in mind that this occurred on a simulation of long duration mission, not with actual astronauts. Alcohol was involved, a fist fight occurred and the incident was probably important in terms of figuring how different cultures mix (it was a idiotic Russian man and Canadian woman as I recall).
There's never been anything remotely like this that I recall on any space flight by any country. It typically takes years to train for a specific mission and any sort of hint of this would probably get a trainee bumped from the mission. Besides astro and cosmonauts tend to be type A, very focused types who wouldn't want let anything jeopardize this change to go into space.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:41 PM on January 23, 2016
Keep in mind that this occurred on a simulation of long duration mission, not with actual astronauts. Alcohol was involved, a fist fight occurred and the incident was probably important in terms of figuring how different cultures mix (it was a idiotic Russian man and Canadian woman as I recall).
There's never been anything remotely like this that I recall on any space flight by any country. It typically takes years to train for a specific mission and any sort of hint of this would probably get a trainee bumped from the mission. Besides astro and cosmonauts tend to be type A, very focused types who wouldn't want let anything jeopardize this change to go into space.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:41 PM on January 23, 2016
If the simulations aren't treated just like real missions then that seems like poor experimental design? Will the real missions involve idiots and booze; if not, why allow them into simulations?
posted by bleep at 1:35 PM on January 23, 2016
posted by bleep at 1:35 PM on January 23, 2016
Because real space missions don't involve idiots and booze. Seriously.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:43 PM on January 23, 2016
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:43 PM on January 23, 2016
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posted by emjaybee at 9:58 AM on January 22, 2016