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Thursday, July 29, 2010

The Right Stuff?

In response to sky and telescope article "The Right Stuff" April 2010.

Training for a sub-orbital flight in a vehicle that is supposedly designed for virtually anyone to be a passenger(the medical requirements are negligible) is a bit of an oxymoron. The idea of doing altitude training (which untold thousands of military have done - so is no biggie, unless you have COPD etc) and a centrifuge ride (3g - please , 6g maybe a bit tough - >9 g is standard for military aircrew) well it makes you wonder what the point of it is except to gather data (of which there is plenty on 'healthy' subjects, but precious little on 'unhealthy' subjects - the passengers with the $). If that’s the standard, then they are going to run out of fare paying (and not too healthy) passengers rapidly. "Harrowing" it isnt , a barrier to passengers - maybe.

2 comments:

  1. I agree-- in my opinion, the centrifuge runs will separate the "men from the boys" particularly for the likely demographic that will initially fly-- older, multiple CV risk factors, EtOH and smoking history, etc (at least based on public info from Virgin Galactic).

    What I found interesting in "reading between the lines" of David Grinspoon's article in the April 2010 Sky and Telescope, "The Right Stuff?" was that the centrifuge ride was not for the faint of heart (pardon the pun.) The author was presumably healthy and younger than the average likely paying passenger demographic, so he had enough cardiac reserve to tolerate even higher G runs, but with his admitting that enduring G forces was a "crushing, suffocating feeling" it also begs the question of how many may bail b/c of claustrophobia as well. I don't want to be a killjoy, but I think this clearly underscores the need to know precisely what one is to encounter before even simulating the real thing. Training-- good training-- is just as important as the final flight... as is the centrifuge run!

    Incidentally-- I was a bit unclear about whether the training mimicked the same G profile as anticipated on SpaceShip2. If prospective trainees are undergoing "training" runs at lower G's before enduring higher G's or the actual flight profile, how is that different physiologically from just jumping into SS2 and flying? Makes me wonder if there's a training effect that biases G-force tolerance. In other words-- if individuals do not undergo a training run, would their G tolerance be as high as VG (and NASTAR) have claimed? My gut says no... hmm.

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  2. Here's an article from the Space Review on VG's experience with spaceflight participant training (as mentioned in my prior posting):

    http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1062/1

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