Category Archives: Living in Space

Future space, In Space Infrastructure, Living in Space

Sci-Tech: Suspended animation for medical apps and space travel

We don’t yet have self-aware robots or low cost transportation to orbit but we do have iPhones and Google search. The latter two are just as sci-fi as the former two technologies for someone who grew up in the 1960s. The future really is hard to predict.  Some tech that seemed almost in hand keeps getting pushed further into the future while occasionally something that seemed extremely far-fetched turns out to be well within reach.

For example, suspended animation, also referred to as induced hibernation or extended torpor (see post here), has been a common plot device in science fiction for ages. It played a prominent role, for example, in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey where several members of a crew going to Jupiter were put into hibernation to reduce the amount of food, oxygen, etc, needed for the trip. Until recently, I thought this was no closer to reality than Hal but  it looks like it might nearly be in hand  : Suspended Animation Human Trials About to Begin – IFLScience.

It shouldn’t in fact be too surprising. Maintaining patients in unconscious states for days is done routinely in hospitals. Coma patients can be kept alive for months, even years. Occasionally there are reports of someone awakening from a long term coma and continuing with a normal life. So the mechanics of maintaining the vital systems appears to be well understood.

The induced torpor research is aiming to go the next step and lower body temperature to slow metabolic processes even further than in a comatose state. As mentioned in the above article, doctors are using Therapeutic Hypothermia (TH) already to deal with some traumatic injuries.

In the video below (starting at 55:30)  from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Symposium held back in February (see post here), John Bradford of SpaceWorks Engineering and his collaborator Douglas Talk discussed such issues in a presentation about their proposed Torpor Inducing Transfer Habitat For Human Stasis To Mars. Here are their slides (pdf) and see also this infographic (pdf).

As with Discovery-1 expedition, they are proposing to place a crew

in inactive, low-metabolic Torpor state for mission transfer phases by leveraging evolving medical advances in Therapeutic Hypothermia  and Total Parenteral Nutrition.

The benefits of this include:

– Reduction in mission consumables due to inactive crew
– Reduced pressurized volume required for living quarters
– Eliminate many ancillary crew accommodations (food galley, eating  supplies, cooking, exercise equipment, entertainment, etc.)
– Minimize psychological challenges for crew

Watch live streaming video from niac2014 at livestream.com

John Bradford is posting updates on progress with their study at the blog Space Torpor. In a recent post he showed images of a proposed Artificial-Gravity Inducing Torpor Habitat!

artG-torporHab-cut-away[1]

In Space Infrastructure, Living in Space, Space Systems

FISO: On-Orbit Servicing + To Mars via 6 not-so-easy pieces + Solar sails

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Catching up with recent presentations to the Future In-Space Operations (FISO) study group. The presentation materials are  posted in the FISO Working Group Presentations Archive for the following 3 talks.

* On-Orbit Servicing: Telepresence and the DEOS Simulator, Jordi Artigas , DLR  – May.7.14

  • An overview of the German space agency (DLR)  in-space robotics projects, past and present. An intro to telepresence
  • Artigas_5-7-14.pdf – slides
  • Artigas.mp3 – audio

A timeline of DLR space robotics projects:

Timeline

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* Mission to Mars Using Six ‘Not So Easy’ Pieces, Mike Raftery, Boeing- May 14, 2014

SEPatMars

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* Solar Sail Description and Space Weather (and Other) Mission Capabilities, Bruce Campbell , (formally ATK, GSFC) – May 21, 2014

  • An overview of the basics of solar sails, types of solar sails, a review of previous, current and future projects
  • Campbell_5-21-14.pdf – slides
  • Campbell.mp3 – audio

SizeComparisons

Living in Space, Space industry

Video: Microgravity science and commercialization

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In this recent SETI Institute seminar video,  Ioana Cozmuta of NASA Ames gives an overview of microgravity science and discusses research in biotech, materials processing, and other areas that offer an excellent potential for generating commercial products: Microgravity, the future of innovation – SETI Institute http://youtu.be/kT9pEFE9pBA

In Space Infrastructure, Living in Space, Space Systems

Sunday webinar on artificial gravity via rotation with tethers

On Sunday May 25th,  The Space Show will present a special video webinar program on the topic of using rotation to provide artificial gravity. Joe Carroll will discuss his ideas on using tethers for such rotating systems.

WEBINAR: The Sunday, May 25, 2014 program from 1-3 PM PDT, (4-6 PM EDT, 3-5 PM CDT): This is our first WEBINAR for 2014. Our guest of honor is Joe Carroll and I will be assisted on the panel with Dr. John Jurist and Dr. Jim Logan. Joe is updating us on his partial gravity work which was the topic of an earlier webinar in May 2011. You can listen to the audio only for this show as you would any Space Show program. If you want to see the live webinar, go to our private UStream Space Show channel, www.ustream.tv/channel/the-space-show. Note that this show will archive audio and video simultaneously. The video of our webinar will be on our private Space Show Vimeo channel. Watch for details.

Joe Carroll has worked since 1981 on advanced space transportation, mostly involving long tethers. He led the development of the Small Expendable Deployment System (SEDS), which demonstrated controlled deorbit without rockets in 1993 and also flew successfully on SEDS-2 in 1994, and TiPS in 1996. He also developed the deployer and wire for the Plasma Motor Generator (PMG), which demonstrated electrodynamic thrust in orbit.  He has also worked on unmanned and manned reentry vehicle concepts for NASA and several startups. His main current work is on electrodynamic tethers.

Here is a paper by Carroll : Design Concepts for a Manned Artificial Gravity Research Facility, by Joseph A Carroll, Tether Applications, Inc., USA (pdf).

[ Update: Some additional material has been made available for the show:

]

Here are articles from Robert Walker who examines Carroll’s tether concept. Walker includes several animations showing how a crew capsule and its spent upper stage could be tethered together to provide a spin gravity system at low cost:

Here, for example, is an animation of a Soyuz spacecraft that is tethered to its upper stage.

For lunar gravity level:

Joe Caroll suggests a 600 meter tether. The final stage weighs a third of the weight of the Soyuz. This puts the centre of gravity of the assembly 150 meters away from the Soyuz, and 450 meters away from the final stage. 

This lets you generate artificial lunar gravity with spin rate of 1 rpm.

At that rotation rate the Soyuz has delta v of 15.6 m/sec, the final stage travels at three times that speed, and the speed of the Soyuz relative to the final stage is four times that, 62.4 m/sec.