Mohamed Kashkoush, Slow Down, Space X, The Scientist, Mar. 15, 2019.
For starters, NASA does not know why or to what extent spaceflight increases the incidence and complicates the management of disease, including bacterial infections, osteoporosis, renal stone formation, psychiatric disorders, ocular and vestibular disturbances, immunosuppression, muscular degeneration, and radiation carcinogenesis. Importantly, the HRR predicts that these questions will largely remain pending through 2030.Addendum: Weightlessness causes problems for vision.
Another limitation is NASA’s lack of experience and clinical-grade data concerning the effects of prolonged spaceflight on human health, leaving astronauts perilously susceptible to unknown unknowns. For example, the longest consecutive time spent in outer space by an American is only 342 days. Even under the best-case travel scenario, which occurs every 26 months on orbital alignment, expected travel times to Mars approach one year. Not only can SpaceX make no safety guarantees beyond the 342-day mark, it also cannot empirically draw any conclusions beyond 248,655 miles from Earth (the distance record set when Apollo 13 travelled to the far side of the moon).
Compared to founder and CEO Elon Musk’s statements declaring that living on Mars is “the relatively easier part” of the endeavor, it appears that NASA and SpaceX are not on the same page when it comes to the dangers of long-term spaceflight. Given these dangers, SpaceX’s apparent lack of attention to these matters seems strange to say the least. How can we send people to Mars with such an unknown medical prognosis? In my opinion, the silence signals that all talk from SpaceX about interplanetary colonization in the near future is merely marketing hype.
Words of Richard Ortiz a production worker at a Tesla factory.
ReplyDeleteIn regard to the high tech layout of the environment "its like you died and went to auto worker heaven..... everything feels like the future but us"
Musk's focus in on company survival, these are money losing enterprises, terrible health and safety in the workplace can be rationalized on this profit and loss basis as a 'necessary expense.'
Musk seems to believe in his own hype and his 'inspirational measure', much to the detriment of his work force.