
Scott Kelly Spent a Year in Orbit. His Body Is Not Quite the Same - secfirstmd
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/science/scott-mark-kelly-twins-space-nasa.html#click=https://t.co/Tr2EtNP2z3
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inflatableDodo
>Drawing his own blood in zero gravity, for example, was a familiar routine.
“I’ve had a couple spills in my time,” Mr. Kelly said. “You just reach out and
grab the blobs of blood.”

That paragraph stopped me short. It reads like something from a Heinlein
novel.

~~~
Klathmon
I absolutely love hearing stories from astronauts about how quickly they adapt
to microgravity and how easy it is to forget when they come back.

Things like stories of them suddenly letting go of stuff they are holding on
earth and expecting it to float there, or reaching out to grab on to a wall to
stop themselves while walking down a hallway.

~~~
taneq
I've heard a couple of similar stories from people who spend a lot of time in
VR and forget that the rules don't transfer back. One guy smacked his head
into the fridge door trying to look inside it because he forgot that he would
actually _collide with_ the door.

~~~
whatshisface
I'm really not looking forwards to VR driving games, then.

~~~
lqet
I heavily played GTA: Vice City during the time I learned how to drive. After
I got my driver's licence, I remember one instance where I clearly noticed how
my brain drifted into GTA mode while I was driving through town. I had to
actively remember myself that this is a real environment and that I cannot
just drive over the street lamp post without anything happening. I talked to a
classmate about this and he had had a similar experience, but with Mafia
(which had a very realistic car handling, you could even activate an expert
mode where you had to shift manually iirc).

I stopped playing GTA for a while after that.

~~~
mises
This has been part of my concern with such things. I don't know that the
alarmism about "violent videogames create young terrorist-wannabes" is
correct, but it's hard (especially as games become increasingly photorealistic
and physics become more and more accurate) to distinguish, I'm sure.

It's a little scary to think we might have a guy run someone else over, and
plead insanity saying "I thought it was a videogame". This strikes me as
another manifestation of the same problem we will have to deal with concerning
things like Google Duplex: is it okay to have robots that can impersonate
humans? Games that can impersonate the real world? There was a discussion the
other day on how online dating apps are causing a large percentage of men to
end up "involuntarily celibate"; some people proposed sex-bots as a solution.
Can we really live with ourselves as people and as a society if these things
come to pass?

~~~
taneq
That's the thing, though. It's not "I thought I was in a video game, officer."
(In fact that's often used as a strawman.) It's "my reflexes were slightly
perturbed by the amount of time I've spent practicing an activity that looks
very similar to this activity but has very different rules in some
circumstances."

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TheBeardKing
I guess outline.com doesn't work on NYT any more. Copy/paste here?

~~~
duxup
Do what you got to do, but I'd like to take a moment to say I signed up for an
online subscription. Journalism is important and I'm ok with a couple bucks a
month to support it.

~~~
mises
I would rather not support the New York Times. I find their coverage to be
overtly biased, and don't think that's worth giving money to.

I think the Wall Street Journal is closest to center: reporting leans left;
editorials lean right.

~~~
duxup
To each their own. I've found WSJ is fine, it gets a little simplistic at
times where I find it a bit disingenuous. Too many "here's a one line bar
graph that shows a thing going up 10 years after de/regulation" like that's
not evidence of anything.... but that's hardly unique among news these days.

Outside of what I think are the obviously truly "biased" groups, I don't
perceive it as just left or right all the time. I think there's a lot of room
to cover a story various ways and not necessarily be "biased". But I certainly
see how folks think that way, it does worry me though, even on HN you'll see
"here's 3 negative sounding articles about this topic... that reporter is
biased". Like that's not necessarily biased man...

~~~
mises
I agree that WSJ isn't perfect, I just think it's good about breaking news and
original reporting. The rest, I get from other sources (including far-left and
far-right ones). It's part of a balanced news diet, so to speak.

I understand not everyone is biased, but the NYT is still not good about it.
The top of their front page today is the Israeli election "through the eyes of
a palestinian". Top of the page has an article called, "How Capitalism
Betrayed Privacy". Also top is an article entitled, "How Big Business Is
Hedging Against the Apocalypse", followed by an article about how the "digital
world is not designed to keep women safe." that advocates for regulation (but
seriously, why would we design the internet to keep one group safe? And how?).

I understand that doesn't make everything they report wrong, and I still read
articles by them, but I'd rather support the WSJ if I've got to pick one.

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VyseofArcadia
I read his memoir when it first came out. It's mentioned briefly in the NYT
article, but I highly recommend giving it a read.

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sfly
Have there been precious studies that look at generic changes in astronauts?

This article is great but it feels like everyone mentioned in it is making a
lot of statements on an extremely limited sample size.

~~~
hFAUST
Yeah, so far there were just estimations. Even this is still in a wayI mean my
gf's father has a twin and they were mirror image of each other but then in
less than 5 years both became so different that you can hardly even tell that
they are related in any way. If there will be few more twins to repeat this
project then a more generic result could be gathered.

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Gunstig2Snath
Maybe the reality is that all the science fiction stories have got it wrong
all these times: that we have to genetically engineer different humans to
traverse interplanetary (and in the far future, interstellar) distances and to
live in alien worlds, so that we have less in common with them,
physiologically, than we have with, say, the Cro Magnons.

~~~
narag
I imagine interstellar travel with some kind of Matrix-like hibernation. But
all the problems with interplanetary are just a matter of stinginess. Low
gravity? Make a 2001 style ring. Radiation? Make a big ass ship with enough
isolation.

Is that _astronomically_ expensive? Of course. But avoid gravity well. Start
building a Moon base with mining facilities, then move to Ceres, and son on.

Current Mars fever is a distraction. We have no idea what Mars gravity could
do to babies born there. Do parents have the right to raise their children in
Mars? Even if they're viable, they might want to come to Earth and find out
their bodies won't resist the gravity. What about waiting for animal tests?

~~~
Udo
_> Current Mars fever is a distraction._

Yes, but it's a distraction from doing absolutely nothing at all with humans
in space. I agree in a saner world we'd have built a Moon base first, and then
moved on from there. But it's apparently not how we as a civilization operate.

Instead we set lofty and slightly impractical goals. If we meet those goals,
we usually take two steps back and wait for a few generations. But if we are
not successful, we usually never try again.

It's not ideal, but yes, I'd absolutely prefer an ambitious Mars program over
nothing at all. And for decades, until recently, nothing at all was where we
were comfortable.

 _> We have no idea what Mars gravity could do to babies born there. Do
parents have the right to raise their children in Mars?_

Historically, we have been very bad at predicting these things, and we usually
mispredicted on the side of doom. Yes, there will be a physiological impact,
not just on babies, on everybody living there. However, there is no reason as
such to assume babies in particular would be unviable there.

Today, parents can and regularly do make decisions about their children's
mental and physical health that are absolutely _known_ to be detrimental. For
better or worse, we generally accept that children are brought up completely
powerless over their lifestyle, their healthcare, their economic situation,
their education, their belief system... Compared to that settling on another
world with unknown dangers seems at least on par.

I'd wager that a child born on Mars today is way more likely to die of things
other than gravity or the lack thereof. We already have animal test data in
microgravity.

~~~
whatshisface
> _I agree in a saner world we 'd have built a Moon base first, and then moved
> on from there._

Mars is more livable than the moon because it has atmospheric CO2, (more)
water, and a better mineral story.

> _Today, parents can and regularly do make decisions about their children 's
> mental and physical health that are absolutely known to be detrimental._

After decades of parenting and diet fads followed by a replication crisis,
it's clear that nothing which filters down to the parents could be called
anything close to known (much less absolutely).

~~~
narag
_Mars is more livable than the moon because it has atmospheric CO2, (more)
water, and a better mineral story._

The goal of a Moon base is not living there, it's building from a place near
to Earth but outside the gravity well. Martian atmosphere and water are a pie
in the sky. If we're unable to build a base in the Moon, how are we supposed
to do it in Mars? If we can do it in the Moon, it would be incredibly useful
for preparing a Mars base.

That's all pretty obvious and it was the plan half a century ago. The only
reason Mars is getting so much attention is to captivate our imagination. But
what's the real purpose of _living_ in Mars? I can't see the reason. I do see
why it would be useful to send humans to space in general.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Or, as I always say when this comes up, start with a base on the top of Mt
Everest. Much more similar to Mars, and definitely cheaper to try. With all
the challenges of no breathable air, storms, inhospitable rocky terrain, bleak
environment.

If this seems ridiculous or impossible, then that's the state of our Mars
colony ambitions as well.

~~~
whatshisface
There is already an undersea base for training astronauts for the ISS. There
is also the ISS, which is already a significantly more challenging environment
than Everest. Although it would be nice to have scientific outposts in all of
these places, one must bear in mind that these things are very expensive, so
the cost/benefit of the scientific value has to be weighed carefully. The
cheapest option is not always the best value.

A lunar space station called LOP-G (lunar orbital platform gateway) is
presently planned, and although it is a "smaller step" it is being widely
attacked for not being useful.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
So Everest would be possible? Am I hearing that? No launch costs, you can walk
away if you need to (depending on the weather). Has to be cheaper by billions
than an orbital station.

~~~
whatshisface
It would absolutely be possible to have a base on the peak of Everest. I think
you can even get up there with helicopters. The only question is, what would
be the scientific value? Astronauts do not go to the ISS just because they
love living in cramped quarters for six months... ;)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Live for a year without resupply, generate own heat and power, prove you can
survive. And do useful work. Before committing human beings to Mars. The topic
of this discussion.

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everyone
His moustache fell off.

~~~
winseybash
It's his twin brother, Mark, who has the moustache:
[https://s.abcnews.com/images/US/mark-scott-kelly-nasa-ht-
jc-...](https://s.abcnews.com/images/US/mark-scott-kelly-nasa-ht-
jc-190410_hpMain_16x9_1600.jpg)

~~~
everyone
winseybash doesnt get jokes lol

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DJBunnies
I would expect a body to change after a year of any circumstance.

~~~
smeyer
The point is that it changed in ways different to his twin's body, and some of
those changes even reverted once he was back on earth for a while. It's pretty
unlikely that this is all just an anomaly and the regular changes of a body
over the course of a year independent of the fact he was in space.

