Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

I was going to say “I’d be surprised if organ support is a large issue to an adult. We already have long term astronauts and people who are bed ridden for a long time during recovery. I would expect an issue during development though.”

Turns out there is research in this direction: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2379624/pdf/can...

It seems to say that there is a long term impact on connective tissue hardening… but it blames lack of stretching; not lack of downward force. Any regular movement would seem to fix that.

However, internally, organ tissue probably ‘bounces’ more due to gravity during movement… so less gravity means less flex of connective tissue.

TLDR: you seem to be right




> long term astronauts and people who are bed ridden

And those people lose a lot of bone mass, muscle mass, and need physical therapy to get back to normal function in 1G. Two months of bed rest will absolutely ruin you. There's a good reason astronauts need to be fit to begin with!

6 months in space causes bone loss equivalent of 20 years of aging. Return to Earth, do physical therapy for 1 year, and you're still "10 years older" as far as bone loss goes. (https://www.sciencenews.org/article/space-bone-loss-density-...).

Generally, as far as I know, bone growth is triggered by impacts (think running etc), and is hard to stimulate with just muscle exercises.


> Generally, as far as I know, bone growth is triggered by impacts (think running etc), and is hard to stimulate with just muscle exercises.

Maybe they should do jumping while being pulled "down" by rubber bands.


The current microgravity solution is a treadmill for running that rubber bands pull you down to.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: