Easier way to get to Mars and back to moon...

[Billy T]

Again, postulating a breakthrough in cellular maintenance and genetic manipulation, ... {so that years of direct exposure to cosmic radiation is not lethal}

As the the rate of cellular damage with normal aging is tiny in comparison to cosmic radiation, you are postulating that death can be abolished.

 

[cosmictotem]

As the the rate of cellular damage with normal aging is tiny in comparison to cosmic radiation, you are postulating that death can be abolished.

So is Aubrey de Grey, essentially. Have you heard him? Death from old age and illness, actually. Not accidents.

 

[Billy T]

So is Aubrey de Grey, essentially. ...

So there are two of you who think death can be abolished, but he think by reduction of diseases and you by repair of the much more rapid damage done by cosmic rays. They are a form of accidental death by many micro collisions.

 

[Oystein]

The best idea , to me, would be finding a faster way to get to Mars. It now takes 9 months to a year to get there so by reducing the time to go there it would be better than having "supply lines". If they could get there in 4 months or less it would be the way to go. Eventually a faster way to travel through space will be found but will it be sooner than later?

In other posts you whine about the expense of a Mars mission. Now here you suggest we spend even more money on a Mars mission. Now which is it for you? You don't put much thought (if any) in your posts, do ya?

 

[paddoboy]

The idea of self sustaining space stations is appealing. But for this project I agree with billvon. So far the resources put into self sustaining biosphere research has been pretty weak. I agree you that this research should be very important. Especially if we get serious about manned space travel. It boils down to whether we have the will to do it. There's a bunch of excuses why it's not a good idea. One of the main ones is it will cost a lot of money. The whole world could get a piece of that action. I'm an idealist on the economic aspects of such a project. Jobs and everything that goes with it. Give the European Union a chance to get off the austerity bandwagon. You must have read Heinleins 'Farmer in the sky'.

Totally agree.
The time thought for a manned ship to get to Mars is in the order of 6 months: Then an enforced stay of around 18 months or so, for a favourable lift off and return.
The ISS is serving its purpose in giving astronauts/cosmonauts the time in space: Creating a Moon base would give us the experience needed to build and survive for the necessary stay on the red planet.
And of course the issue of an International effort is also a must if this is to succeed sooner than later.
Hasn't NASA also got plans in the pipeline to visit and land on an asteroid?

 

[cosmictotem]

So there are two of you who think death can be abolished, but he think by reduction of diseases and you by repair of the much more rapid damage done by cosmic rays. They are a form of accidental death by many micro collisions.

I don't think Death can be abolished and I'm sure neither does de Grey. More likely Death due to aging and cellular damage can be post-poned for long periods of time with cellular maintanence.

De Grey, who is an expert in the field of gerontology, is suggesting we are getting closer to the point where it will be within the realm of medical and technological possibility, where we will be able to repair the micro-damage to the human body faster than it occurs.

 

[Billy T]

I don't think Death can be abolished and I'm sure neither does de Grey. More likely Death due to aging and cellular damage can be post-poned for long periods of time with cellular maintanence.


De Grey, who is an expert in the field of gerontology, is suggesting we are getting closer to the point where ... we will be able to repair the micro-damage to the human body faster than it occurs.

No he does not suggest that. That is your suggestion, if speaking of repair of radiation damage to a cell by cosmic ray passing thru it. He speaks of slowing the already slow (takes years) processes of aging. The killing of cells* by high energy cosmic rays occurs in a few microseconds, which in case you don't know is much less time than a year.

* Filling them with many oxidizing free radicals, and some broken DNA strands, etc. As with humans, exactly when the cell dies is a question of definitions, but their death is made certain in small fraction of a second.

The best idea , to me, would be finding a faster way to get to Mars.

There are protons from space just drifting thru the solar system and others streaming outward from the sun. The faster you go thru this charged particle "cloud," the greater radiation damage it does to you each hour. I. e. there is an optimum transit speed and it varies with solar activity. I don't know what it is. Perhaps a faster transit would reduce the radiation damage, but you can not just assume that is the case. - Give some support for that / your view.

BTW one can be sure that the shorter the path is, the better. This means that either your stay briefly on Mars or several months longer than year. (In one year, Mars will have moved further along its orbit and Earth must too if you want to reproduce the shortest path for the return.) Although it is now technically possible to have a few people visit Mars, briefly, mankind is a long way from being able to feed them for say 16 months on Mars and protect them from cosmic ray deaths (with say 2x7 in two way transit + 16 on Mars) with 30 months of Cosmic ray exposure. I'm just guessing, but bet people eat several times their weight in food every 30 months. So staying on Mars for one of its orbits (687 days) is for the very distant future, if even possible.

 

[cosmictotem]

No he does not suggest that. That is your suggestion, if speaking of repair of radiation damage to a cell by cosmic ray passing thru it. He speaks of slowing the already slow (takes years) processes of aging. The killing of cells* by high energy cosmic rays occurs in a few microseconds, which in case you don't know is much less time than a year.

* Filling them with many oxidizing free radicals, and some broken DNA strands, etc. As with humans, exactly when the cell dies is a question of definitions, but their death is made certain in small fraction of a second.There are protons from space just drifting thru the solar system and others streaming outward from the sun. The faster you go thru this charged particle "cloud," the greater radiation damage it does to you each hour. I. e. there is an optimum transit speed and it varies with solar activity. I don't know what it is. Perhaps a faster transit would reduce the radiation damage, but you can not just assume that is the case. - Give some support for that / your view.

BTW one can be sure that the shorter the path is, the better. This means that either your stay briefly on Mars or several months longer than year. (In one year, Mars will have moved further along its orbit and Earth must too if you want to reproduce the shortest path for the return.) Although it is now technically possible to have a few people visit Mars, briefly, mankind is a long way from being able to feed them for say 16 months on Mars and protect them from cosmic ray deaths (with say 2x7 in two way transit + 16 on Mars) with 30 months of Cosmic ray exposure. I'm just guessing, but bet people eat several times their weight in food every 30 months. So staying on Mars for one of its orbits (687 days) is for the very distant future, if even possible.

Here's an idea: grown human cells in space until you get a strain resistant to cosmic rays, then use those robust cells to clone humans.

 

[Edont Knoff]

These supply lines could be composed of mostly floating biospheres which, harness the sun's energy to create many floating Eco-systems arranged in a long line reaching the moon and then Mars.

The problem is that earth and mars are not orbiting sun in sync. Earth laps mars about 2 and 1/2 times on it's orbit until mars mars completes one orbit.

It will be hard to keep a "line" there in space, even if it points from mars inwards to the earth orbit, so we could hop on each time earth passes by on the inner orbit - these stepping stones won't stay there on their own, due to orbit mechanics, but need thrusters and fuel.

Or, the "line" will only be a line every few years when all stepping stones, earth and mars line up, and in between it will be of less use.

 

[cosmictotem]

The problem is that earth and mars are not orbiting sun in sync. Earth laps mars about 2 and 1/2 times on it's orbit until mars mars completes one orbit.

It will be hard to keep a "line" there in space, even if it points from mars inwards to the earth orbit, so we could hop on each time earth passes by on the inner orbit - these stepping stones won't stay there on their own, due to orbit mechanics, but need thrusters and fuel.

Or, the "line" will only be a line every few years when all stepping stones, earth and mars line up, and in between it will be of less use.

Yea, thanks. This was addressed earlier in the thread and you're right. I have since modified my proposal to biospheres floating in a ring of a single orbit so the subject line is a bit misleading.

The point is, should we have enough material, we could increase the frequency of our rendezvous points to Mars by establishing a series of orbital rings spreading out from Earth orbit to close to Mars. Of course, there are some issues with this still being debating in this thread: Those being material limits, slowing and braking spacecraft and cosmic radiation exposure.

To address cosmic rays, my post above puts forth an idea to establish a strain of human cell resistant to cosmic rays and then either cloning humans directly from this strain or injecting the most robust cells in existing humans.

 

[Billy T]

Here's an idea: grown human cells in space until you get a strain resistant to cosmic rays, then use those robust cells to clone humans.

That make same degree of sense as saying make a criminal, scheduled for execution, put his belly against an artillery gun's barrel exit and fire it, replacing the separated body with a new one for the next firing, until you get one that has adapted and survives.

I. e. the cell that has cosmic ray (very high energy charged particle) pass thru it will not evolve - it will die.

 

[Edont Knoff]

To address cosmic rays, my post above puts forth an idea to establish a strain of human cell resistant to cosmic rays and then either cloning humans directly from this strain or injecting the most robust cells in existing humans.

This will be very useful, since radioactive substances emit rays very similar to cosmic rays, and more tolerance against radioactivity will be welocme.

But I don't think it will be easy to develop more robust human stem cells and grow humans from them - or replace "old style" cells in existing humans. You need to replace all cells, since even one leftover suscepible cell can develop into a tumor, and you don't want that.

Our cells have a few mechanisms to deal with radiation damage. Some damages like certain cracks in DNA molecules can be repaired by our cells. Damaged cells beyond repair can be killed before they start growing cancerous.

The problematic cases are those when these mechanisms fail - incorrect repairs, and damaged cells which are not detected and killed in time.

Instead of growing new cells to make humans of, I see better chances to improve the repair mechanisms for cells. Well, actually the "hunt defective cells and kill them quick" mechanism would be sufficient for most cases. Many cells can multiply and replace died neighboring cells (or there are stem cells which can supply new cells), and the really important thing is to kill bad cells before they start cancerous multiplication.

Sadly, cancer research tries to find an answer to this since decades - mark bad cells and make the immune system kill them. There has been some progress, but it's still not working in a widespread application. But it would be a breakthrough, both for cancer treatment and helping against radiation based cell damage (except those cases when too many cells die or have to be killed, more than the body can regrow in time).

 

[cosmictotem]

That make same degree of sense as saying make a criminal, scheduled for execution, put his belly against an artillery gun's barrel exit and fire it, replacing the separated body with a new one for the next firing, until you get one that has adapted and survives.

I. e. the cell that has cosmic ray pass thru it will not evolve - it will die.

We already have cosmic rays passing through us. Obviously, to a degree, we survive. We also can't survive being submerged in boiling water or high water pressure but there are animals that can and do. And I think it's safe to say creating cells robust enough to survive cosmic rays would be a matter of a gradient scale of ever more exposure over some generations until we had a strain that could survive and possibly thrive in higher levels of exposure.

 

[Billy T]

An adult human being has approximately 100 000 billion cells.

Here is data on their death rate:

So for adults lets say 60,000,000,000 {die} in 24 hours
That means 60,000,000,000 in 1440 minutes (hours times 60)
That means 41,666,666.67 per minute.
From: http://crystalj13.imascientist.org....any-cells-die-in-the-human-body-every-minute/

Yet we do not die in less than a minute and certainly not by the daughters of primary cosmic rays (only ones that reach the surface) I'm just guessing but think less than 10 cells are killed each minute by these daughters passing thru them.


SUMMARY: Your argument, like most of your posts, is your false opinion, not facts.

 

[cosmictotem]

An adult human being has approximately 100 000 billion cells.

Here is data on their death rate:

So for adults lets say 60,000,000,000 {die} in 24 hours
That means 60,000,000,000 in 1440 minutes (hours times 60)
That means 41,666,666.67 per minute.
From: http://crystalj13.imascientist.org....any-cells-die-in-the-human-body-every-minute/

Yet we do not die in less than a minute and certainly not by the daughters of primary cosmic rays (only ones that reach the surface) I'm just guessing but think less than 10 cells are killed each minute by these daughters passing thru them.


SUMMARY: Your argument, like most of your posts, is your false opinion, not facts.

I'm still not convinced that human cells can't be bred to be resistant to cosmic rays and you can't say that's impossible.

All things in the Universe are relative. That includes the things that will harm and kill you depending upon what you are. All things evolve and adapt. And those that adapt survive.

You can't definatively say a strain of human cells can't be selectively bred to withstand cosmic rays, just as you can't say a virus could never evolve to be resistant to our drugs. Or a more robust insect could never evolve to survive ingestion of our poisons.

You can't say anything about that and you know it.

In fact, precident shows it is probably possible.

 

[Billy T]

This is an illustration of a single primary ray hitting the nucleus of an atmospheric atom 20Km above the surface. Most of the daughter do not even reach the surface. Imaging the damage it (and the dozen or so first generation daughters) would do passing thur the cell that the primary hit a nucleus of atom in the cell.

 

[Billy T]

I'm still not convinced that human cells can't be bred to be resistant to cosmic rays and you can't say that's impossible. ...

If hit by a primary ray and not killed, by it and the dughters, why would you need to bred other cells resistant to cosmic rays? You have found one.

In fact, precident shows it is probably possible.

What precident do you refer too? Is it that that inside the Earth's shielding magnetic field, astronauts have not been killed even with a year in low earth orbit? They have only been damaged. Outside this sheilding field, it is a different story. The primary rays are rare, compared to solar flare particles, but will get you if long outside the magnetic shield, as for example in one of your oribiting "stepping stone" way stations.

This illustraation is from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4206856/ and you should read it. Here are two brief qoutes from that link:
"Exposure to space radiation increases the risks of astronauts developing cancer, experiencing central nervous system (CNS) decrements, exhibiting degenerative tissue effects or developing acute radiation syndrome. One or more of these deleterious health effects could develop during future multi-year space exploration missions beyond low Earth orbit (LEO). Shielding is an effective countermeasure against solar particle events (SPEs), but is ineffective in protecting crew members from the biological impacts of fast moving, highly-charged galactic cosmic radiation (GCR) nuclei. "

"The interaction of energetic SPE protons and heavy-charged GCR particles with the spacecraft structure can produce an additional, secondary intravehicular radiation hazard. Secondary particles produced in nuclear fission reactions include protons, alpha particles, beta particles, gamma rays, x-rays, neutrons and heavy-charged particles. Created by passing through spacecraft shielding, these fission products can deliver a significant fraction of the total mission dose and have the ability to damage critical cellular components when passing through the tissues of the body." -These "daughters" make being inside the space craft or one of your orbiting way stations, more dangerous than being in a space suit far from it as far as cosmic rays are concerned.

 

[cosmictotem]

This is an illustration of a single primary ray hitting the nucleus of an atmospheric atom 20Km above the surface. Most of the daughter do not even reach the surface. Imaging the damage it (and the dozen or so first generation daughters) would do passing thur the cell that the primary hit a nucleus of atom in the cell.

I get that. I don't want you to think I'm ignoring you. I'm not. I'm just saying we see creatures adapting to harsh environments and conditions that would kill other creatures instantly all around us.

If cosmic rays are so infinately destructive to living cells and we can't do anything to combat them, why has the human lifespan grown? Why do some animals live longer than others? Why do turtles and parotid live longer than us? You would think the cosmic ray clock would set a time limit relatively the same for all species.

What is our atmosphere thinned over a long period of time? Wouldn't some creatures evolve to withstand the larger doses of cosmic radiation?

Oh wait, I think I see what you're saying now...cosmic rays can target the very atoms of all things? Is that correct?

If that's the case, I have to agree, that is a bit of a roadblock.

I may have to think about this a little more.

 

[billvon]

I'm still not convinced that human cells can't be bred to be resistant to cosmic rays and you can't say that's impossible.

It is certainly not impossible to breed cells that are resistant to cosmic radiation. But it would be so hard that other solutions (like building a lead-lined tunnel between Earth and Mars) would be far simpler.

You can't definatively say a strain of human cells can't be selectively bred to withstand cosmic rays

I can definitely say that. You could take human cells and breed them that way, but at the end they would no longer be human cells.

just as you can't say a virus could never evolve to be resistant to our drugs.

I could also say that. You could come up with a nanotechnology-based drug, for example, that does not target viral metabolic pathways, reproductive pathways or antigens. Those are what viruses change to become drug resistant. If you came up with a drug that worked outside those pathways the virus could not evolve resistance.

 

[cosmictotem]

It is certainly not impossible to breed cells that are resistant to cosmic radiation. But it would be so hard that other solutions (like building a lead-lined tunnel between Earth and Mars) would be far simpler.

I can definitely say that. You could take human cells and breed them that way, but at the end they would no longer be human cells.

I could also say that. You could come up with a nanotechnology-based drug, for example, that does not target viral metabolic pathways, reproductive pathways or antigens. Those are what viruses change to become drug resistant. If you came up with a drug that worked outside those pathways the virus could not evolve resistance.

So space sucks? Is that what you're telling me?