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#1 2023-07-10 12:20:03

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 9,349

Sending a 'guinea pig' to Mars or Venus

Or a 'Guinea Pig' science 'Station' around the Moon.

What animal would you pick for testing your Martian colony. If you were to test flight animals or some species of animals all the way to Mars what creature is best. Supporters of the continued use of animals in science such as the British Royal Society, argue that virtually every medical achievement in the 20th century relied on the use of animals in some way. If data is lacking for long term exposure in a deep space mission perhaps a Bio-Satellite could even be put in orbit around the Moon instead of a long trip to Mars.

However it has become less socially acceptable to test animals in the Western world. Perhaps you could have a Robot orbit with them and land on the surface to build a Farm. We might one day clone animal bodies without head and brains to test some torso, cadaver, or animal trunk without 'feelings'. But for now what animal would you test? On Earth Humans sometimes would volunteer for human subject research for example testing the effects of Wind upon a person in controlled experimentation. In school biology class it was very common to kill a Frog to study science, chloroform administered a common frog to induce anesthesia and death, there would be an exam the next day on the organs and biological system of the animal. Tortoise and Turtle can live 50 - 70 years Rabbits have been used in science and live up to 10 years, Koi Fish can be over 100 years old the Pig can live 25 years and an Ant Queen 3 years, Sea Urchins live beyond 30 years some live hundreds of years. Fruit flies are short lived, an invertebrate commonly used in animal testing today, in our past medical sciences Insulin was first isolated from dogs in 1922, and later revolutionized the treatment of diabetes. Guinea pigs are not too unlike humans, they have a Life span 4-8, Lab Rat testing has been used for pure research into biology, food, chemicals, radiation, the species of zebrafish are also used. Testing animals has become more controversial and less politically correct, perhaps one day an AI might learn dog language ask a Dog to volunteer or if it would like to fly to Mars? The Soviets put a Dog in space 'Laika', the USA / NASA had a squirrel monkey and Ham, a 'Great Ape' or a chimpanzee, the French put a cat into outer space, the Chinese have tested animals such as mice before they launched 'Shenzhou'. Certain Animal Testing in certain regions might one day come to an end on planet Earth,  the EU, India, Colombia in South America and the Nation of New Zealand now have a Nationwide ban on all cosmetic testing on animals. Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee members say they take their work very seriously regardless of the species involved, though the use of non-human primates always raises what are called a "red flag of special concern". In year 2022, a law was passed in the United States that eliminated the FDA requirement that all drugs be tested on animals or become more 'taboo'. https://reason.com/2023/01/13/u-s-will- … new-drugs/ Some medical schools and agencies in China, Japan, and South Korea have built cenotaphs for killed animals, Japan also have annual memorial services  for animals sacrificed at medical schools.
https://web.archive.org/web/20070829151 … 00145.html
Canada, Japan and the ESA have tested lifeforms in ISS experiments. The Robot upon landing must be able to care for both animal and plant, to farm and provide food / crop for an expected village, a small pet farm of 'animals' on Mars. The animal tested is expected to pave the way for human colonies. The Lunar orbit might also be a target instead of a trip to Mars monitoring a Bio-Satellite and collecting data for a long term Mars mission.



I thought this topic might best go here instead of adding information to the Food Supply / Large Ship thread that would drive it off topic.

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-08-30 06:11:52)

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#2 2023-07-10 13:16:13

tahanson43206
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Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 17,321

Re: Sending a 'guinea pig' to Mars or Venus

For Mars_B4_Moon re fascinating new topic ...

Best wishes for success in attracting member comments and additional citations.

The animals that might be chosen could begin at a lower level than a small mammal.

The ISS experiment history might be a useful guide for members who would like to help to build this topic.

(th)

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#3 2023-07-10 18:28:02

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 9,349

Re: Sending a 'guinea pig' to Mars or Venus

Tahanson I would also considered the concept of a Bio-Sat experiment around the Moon to monitor long term flight and changes in animals from space flight going on a long duration offworld voyage. The Bio satellite might fly with an animal with a medium lifespan for example with 'Guinea Pig' or smaller animals and monitor breeding and even reproduction ability and other issues with zero gravity or with artificial gravity. There is a lot of criticism of 'Gateway' for its costs, added complexity, plus some say the complex Gateway adds a possible risk to human life which does not truly help in directly building a colony on the Moon or Mars, some say you can go build your Moonbase 'direct' or Gateway overall will drain time and energy and is a complex distraction. A Bio-satellite can be an independent commerce mission, launched into Lunar orbit perhaps might be done for $30.5 million US Dollars, it can watch what cosmic radiation does and the level of protection from Solar Flares. Such a small ship / station for small animals, it could partially self assemble and carry chosen creatures onboard. The small bio ship station or Bio-Sat it might operate artificial gravity and maybe a years long feeder system and a backup water, juice dispenser plus have a robot mechanism onboard that would keep small tiny animals health and stimulated. 'Mice' probably are socially acceptable for experiment they are seen by people as pests and there is little objection to having them as experimental subjects a mission as compared to something larger, cute and pet like such as a Cat or Dog. The Bio Satellite might spend nine months doing one mission and another nine months 1.5 years or maybe two or three years traveling through space around the Moon for a full simulation of a mission to match time one could spend at Mars. A Bio satellite around the Moon could be monitored almost in real time from Earth with no risk to a future NASA mission or any other nation's plan to build a biosphere, town or city on the Moon.  Columbia had garden orb spiders, silkworms, bees, harvester ants, and Japanese fish, animals from one experiment were found still alive in the debris https://web.archive.org/web/20110524214 … 051746091/ I might check other STS missions, MIR and Skylab and ISS reports for sciences flight experiments accomplished with non-human subjects in previous space flight missions. Bigelow Aerospace put moths into space testing the viability of long-term inflatable space structures Japanese put Frogs in space and I know Ants, Tortoises, Fruit Fly, Rabbits, Fish have also been to Space, Bigelow seems to have recently laid of many of its workers so I'm not sure it will be a big player in future Commercial Spaceflight, its possible there will be more access to space in the future and missions might become even cheaper thanks to innovators like Space-X.

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#4 2023-07-11 06:22:46

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 17,321

Re: Sending a 'guinea pig' to Mars or Venus

It is highly likely that someone, somewhere on Earth, is thinking about the scenario Mars_B4_Moon has opened with this topic.

A space agency of one of the space faring nations is the most likely source of funding and institutional resolve to make something like this happen.

While the present complement of NewMars members may not be directly involved, we ** can ** watch for news about initiatives along these lines.

In addition, if we are so inclined, we can write to space agencies to see what they might be willing to say to the public about plans for living creature experiments on Mars or elsewhere.

NASA, in particular, is very likely to have at least one individual thinking along these lines.

(th)

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#5 2023-07-11 07:05:34

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 17,321

Re: Sending a 'guinea pig' to Mars or Venus

For Mars_B4_Moon re new topic ....

For 20+ years, this forum has been collecting information about what others are doing, or speculating about what others are doing, or (in a few cases) composing original ideas about what might be done by someone other than themselves.

I noticed that in a recent post you indicated that (to the best of your knowledge) no one had been thinking about a passenger ship for solar system travel.

This observation on your part is understandable because no one person can possibly know everything that is going on.  I am happy to be able to bring to your attention that RobertDyck has been working on a concept for a passenger ship to carry 1000 people to and from Mars, and he has been engaged in that project for a couple of years at least.

It is entirely possible for you to either lead a "guinea pig" project yourself or to inspire others to do so. 

I sure hope this forum is able to advance beyond endless discussion of what others are doing or might do, to delivery of actual Real Universe accomplishment.

If you have the energy (and I recognize energy supply falls off as we get older) you might be able to find a few of what I expect are many initiatives along this line that are in progress world wide.  If you find someone you can persuade to report progress on this forum, I would be happy to open an account for them.

(th)

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#6 2023-08-06 13:17:56

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 9,349

Re: Sending a 'guinea pig' to Mars or Venus

Some news and old article which might relate to the 'guinea pig' idea

Let's go with the figure of launching a spinning biological experiment for $30.5 million US Dollars, NASA's budget is expected to be $25.4 billion or 25 thousand and 400 times One Million

The NASA Budget is NASA Gateway they allocated $779 million of a 2023 budget for the project

as much as NASA spends it is still small compared to other costs and debts of countries around the world, the USA spends less than half of 1% on NASA, 0.48% of the Budget but the Cost will rise, it is expected to increase.

Gravity-Lab's experiment gLab-1 will be cheaper than 'Gateway'

render of gravityLab spinning spacecraft in space
https://sg.style.yahoo.com/gravitylab-w … 50447.html
Bonin has been interested in bioastronautics, a research area combining biology and spaceflight, for a long time. As a graduate student in aerospace engineering in the late aughts, he was piqued by two fundamental problems in space: “How do you get there and how do you stay there?”

He set out to do just that last year, when he and Chris Lewicki founded gravityLab. Lewicki, who is now an advisor for the company, is the former CEO of Planetary Resources, another early asteroid mining startup. gravityLab closed an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Village Global around a year ago to start building prototypes and develop the business.

“We spent most of our time looking at customer and market discovery, so we knew exactly what to go after,” Bonin said. “The well of problems is very deep, deeper than actually we thought.”

gravityLab wants to tackle the artificial gravity problem
https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/28/gravi … y-problem/

Living without gravity spells disaster for the human body. Even a few weeks in microgravity can lead to issues with circulation and vision; over the longer term, the complications compound even further. The heart begins to degenerate and atrophy. Bones turn thin and brittle.

But what about Martian gravity, which is around 0.38 that of Earth? Or somewhere in-between — 0.16 G on the moon, or 0.91 on Venus? How do these gravity levels affect the body, plants and other organisms, even manufacturing processes? We have astonishingly few answers to these questions.

gravityLab wants to find some. The company is developing a spinning spacecraft that will be able to generate what co-founder and CEO Grant Bonin calls “programmable gravity.” The spacecraft will be equipped with a motorized boom that can extend and retract a counterweight. By dynamically varying the length of the boom and the rotation rate, the company says it will be able to control the acceleration of gravity inside the spacecraft.


Russia And China Plan To Build Joint Lunar Space Station
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/russia- … on-2387155

Chinese test flight 2001
https://www.spacedaily.com/news/china-01m.html
a microgravity crystallography experiment; animal species including six mice, and small aquatic and terrestrial organisms


https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/red-m … 50s0y.html

India has future Moon and Mars missions and the South Koreans, Korea Aerospace Research Institute have recently become players in space. KARI signed a lunar exploration technical cooperation with NASA, the Korean Phase 2 will include a lunar orbiter, a lunar lander in 2025, and a rover to be launched together on a KSLV-II South Korean rocket from the Naro Space Center  by 2030.
https://www.reuters.com/article/science … 6320071120



Elon Musk's New Humanoid Robot Might One Day Buy Your Groceries – Smithsonian Magazine
https://www.inferse.com/650486/elon-mus … -magazine/

'We are preparing to launch the first mission, gLab-1 in the fall of 2024'
https://www.gravitylabspace.com/faq

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-08-06 13:32:59)

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#7 2023-08-30 07:47:50

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 9,349

Re: Sending a 'guinea pig' to Mars or Venus

You might also send a small bio station with insect or animal to one of the Lagrange points with no risk to humans.


We seen reports of the SLS Gateway launches or other reports saying the first launch is planned as early as May 2024 with SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket, taking the essential modules.


NASA still serious about astronauts living it up on Moon space station in 2028
https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/22/ … e_station/

The ISS Will Fall From the Sky After the End of the Decade. What Will Replace It?
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science- … 180981879/

Right now, the International Space Station is orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes from around 250 miles above the surface on average at a breakneck speed of 17,500 miles per hour. For more than two decades, the station has served as a microgravity research center, which scientists have used to investigate Alzheimer’s disease and cancer, study our planet from a distance, learn more about the effects of long-duration spaceflight on the human body and conduct thousands of other experiments. But the ISS won’t last forever. Stresses on the primary structure have accumulated over time, including the effects of changing temperatures as the station swings in and out of view of the sun. Last year, NASA announced that the station’s operations would end in 2030, after which it will fall into the Pacific Ocean.

Another factor that could limit the lifespan of the ISS is tensions between Russia and the other entities operating the station—which include the United States, Europe, Japan and Canada. Last April, Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, threatened to stop cooperating with other countries on the ISS in response to Western sanctions against Russia following the country’s invasion of Ukraine. Last summer, the head of Roscosmos said the country would leave the ISS after 2024, though Reuters reported in July that Russia’s departure may come much later. Russia operates 6 of the ISS’s 17 modules, including the space station’s propulsion system. “The Russian module is designed to be an integral part of its guidance and its operations,” says Henry Hertzfeld, an expert in the economic, legal and policy issues of space at George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute. “So if they were to pull out, particularly in the short term without giving enough advance notice, that’s an issue.”

interesting link

Possible acute and late risks to the central nervous system (CNS) from galactic cosmic rays (GCR) and solar particle events (SPE) are concerns for human exploration of space

https://web.archive.org/web/20120215234 … ts/CNS.pdf

It makes sense to have animals do a test flight before people, also perhaps why not test enclosed Eco-systems with animal life again like Biosphere-2 or NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations, or NEEMO. Any Astronaut who goes on a long duration space flight is perhaps a test subject experiment. They say in recent news articles that perhaps Mars would have a Minimum Crew 22 People, today a lot of flight seems to still be Airforce dominant. I wonder even if only a quarter of the crew is Airforce would you really need to have 5 or 6 as 'Pilots' maybe a Vet or Doctors or 'Space Farmers' would be almost equally as important or there would be a lot of cross training. At the start of human spaceflight, the USSR or Russian Soviets and the USA mostly used Test Pilots or people from the Airforce, eventually other people go to space when China started to put people in space it also drew people from Airforce military experience or test flight type Astronauts, ESA and Canada also use a lot of people from their nations Airforce, there have also been others from the military and Navy. The Shuttle changed some of the culture of space flight somewhat in the direction to people of good engineering and science backgrounds. The Japanese have also put Japanese aeronautical engineers in space but they also have a wide variety of choice from Nuclear Engineers, Applied Mechanics guys, mechanical engineers to Doctors to private sponsored  Japanese 'journalist' a lot of Japanese seem to have gained lots of science experience on the shorter Space Shuttle missions. It makes sense to start with Pilots as little was known then about how the human body, how a space vessel or craft will land, little was known about a mission or how a person would respond to space. Only one geologist Harrison “Jack” Schmitt went to the Moon, the Astronaut who flew on the last human flight to the lunar surface. There are extreme cases at the South Pole where Jerri Nielsen and do do a medical procedure on herself or Dr. Leonid Rogozov, who had to remove his own appendix while spending the winter at  research station. "Steve" Bowen is a United States Navy submariner who became an Astronaut I was surprised how few American submarine crew or other Submariner from other nations would later be trained as astronauts, someone who does science in a isolated place like the South Pole or can work in a Submarine seems to be suited for a long term trip. Private Space flight has also changed the types and experience of people who apply to go to space. Maybe no Guinea Pigs yet but Chimps, monkeys and apes, dogs, cats, tortoises, mice, rabbits, fish, frogs, spiders, fruit flies, quail eggs Plants and types of Vegetable and other types insects.

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#8 2023-09-05 10:36:29

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 9,349

Re: Sending a 'guinea pig' to Mars or Venus

a twitter account once known as Orbital Assembly Corporation?

Earlier in 2023, we published a study of opportunities & challenges posed by artificial gravity in space, co-authored by Dr. Mae Jemision, MD & Ronke Olabisi, PhD. We are proud to collaborate with these STEM leaders!
https://nitter.net/abovespacedev/status … 4559748170

Sci-fi movies and tv

'What's the Most Realistic Artificial Gravity in Sci-Fi?'

https://rumble.com/v4g5t7-whats-the-mos … ci-fi.html

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#9 2023-09-07 17:58:38

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 9,349

Re: Sending a 'guinea pig' to Mars or Venus

Guinea pigs are technically omnivores, but they typically prefer a vegetarian. The omnivore is an animal that has the ability to eat and survive on both plant and animal matter. Dogs are actually omnivores but vets have often said they get a better diet as carnivores, even wolves in the wild can take nutrition from both plant and animal sources. Birds can not swallow water in zero G but with Artificial Gravity perhaps a space station could raise Chickens.

Here is an old looking site with tribute to animals in space.

Laika, the first animal ever sent to space, rode to orbit in Sputnik II on the 3rd of November, 1957. Several countries issued stamps honoring Laika. The mock-up of her pressurized space cabin is shown below
https://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/St … laika.html
This website looks like one of those old geocities, usenet, angelfire.com era websites frozen in time


and growth of food and feeding your money or little cat or dog or rat, mouse or rodent on your artificial gravity space station?

a growing station with more added parts?


Science student teacher lesson site
https://bioedonline.org/lessons-and-mor … ot-growth/

Plants respond directly to Earth’s gravitational attraction, and also to light. Stems grow upward, or away from the center of Earth, and towards light. Roots grow downward, or towards the center of Earth, and away from light. These responses to external stimuli are called tropisms. Plants’ growth response to gravity is known as gravitropism; the growth response to light is phototropism. Both tropisms are controlled by plant growth hormones.

Indoleacetic acid, or auxin, is a plant hormone that, in high concentrations, stimulates growth and elongation of cells in stems, while retarding the growth of root cells. When auxin is distributed uniformly throughout a stem, all sides of the stem grow at the same rate, thereby enabling the plant to grow toward light and away from gravity

Staying grounded in space requires artificial gravity
https://www.snexplores.org/article/stay … al-gravity

Ring around the spaceship

If you’ve ever been on a carnival ride like the spinning teacups, you’ve felt artificial gravity. When you are inside a large, spinning object, you will feel a pull toward the outside wall. This is because of inertia. Your body is resisting the change in motion of the object spinning around you.

We feel inertia as something that doesn’t exist — centrifugal force. This force seems to pull us to the outside edge of the rotating teacup.

Centrifugal force is really inertia. But if all you need is artificial gravity, then such an imaginary force works fine. All you need is either a small ship, rotating very fast, or a very large ship rotating slowly. Either way, the spin would pull someone feet-first toward the outside wall.

This is an improvement over magnets, because the whole body would feel the effect. Blood and fluids would move through the body just as they do on Earth. Bones and muscles would feel the pull when someone walked or ran.

A large version of such a system is called an O’Neill cylinder. It’s named for physicist Gerard O’Neill, who came up with the idea. A pair of these vast rotating cylinders would sit aimed toward the sun and spin in opposite directions. Those opposite spins would help hold them in place.

“The only reason we won’t have them is they are huge,” explains Joalda Morancy, who uses they/them pronouns. A junior at the University of Chicago in Illinois, they are studying physics and astronomy. Morancy also is an intern at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

And Morancy isn’t kidding when they say O’Neill cylinders are huge. O’Neill’s original idea was to create space habitats eight kilometers (five miles) across and 32 km long. “About a million people could live there,” Morancy says. “I really wish I could get to see one.”

and more info
https://web.archive.org/web/20210527212 … 001008.pdf

Design for a space habitat with artificial gravity that could be enlarged over time to fit more people


https://phys.org/news/2020-09-space-hab … arged.html

Any habitat that houses that many people will have to deal with some major downsides of living in space. The paper's authors' explicitly list five that their space habitat design was trying to address:

    Gravity
    Radiation protection
    Sustainable agriculture
    Habitat growth capability
    Commercial value

Long-term exposure to lack of gravity wreaks havoc on human bodies, causing everything from vision impairment to bone density loss. Most of these problems are solved by a single elegant solution: artificial gravity.

The practical Centrifugal Force

Centrifugal force results from the centripetal acceleration generated by circular motion (rotation). Examples of circular motion include artificial satellites in geosynchronous orbit, a racecar going through a curve on a racetrack, an aircraft executing a coordinated turn, or an object tied to the end of a rope and twirled about in circles. Most of us have experienced it as the force that pushes us to the left (right) as we make right (left) hand turns in our cars. Spinning motion or rotational motion is a special case of circular motion that occurs when an object rotates or spins about its own center of mass. An example of this kind of motion is a record spinning on a turntable, or indeed, the turntable itself. The spinning produces centripetal acceleration in a radial direction away from the center

the scifi realm,

In 2006 a research group from ESA claimed to have created a similar device that demonstrated positive results for the production of
gravitomagnetism. The device produced only 100 millionths of a g, hardly a usable level of gravity in any application.

and back to reality and a Guinea Pig or Rodent starting to Poop everywhere

Animals however don't really tidy up so there can be need to address hygiene/biowaste

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-09-07 17:59:26)

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