🚀 go-pugleaf

Tom Neff writes:

>I strongly urge all you cave dwellers out there to factor in the
>resource cost, not just of spending X months *at equilibrium* at some
>artificial day length, but of sustaining two or three *transitions*
>between day lengths, all the while trying to run a Mars mission at its
>most critical moments.

     How long does it take the average person to adjust to a three hour
time difference brought on by jet lag?  Several days, at most, during
which time the person is in no incapacitated, but just gets tired
earlier, gets up earlier, and possibly eats meals at different times.
How will any of these types of problems be dangerous (or even bothersome)
on a ** 22 month ** Mars mission?  So it takes you, say, three days
before Mars orbit to set your cycles for Mars.  Big deal!  This will
have to be done anyway, as your 'day' cycle will depend on where on Mars
you land - or do you really advocate that the choice of a landing spot
be left to the basis of "Not now, I'm sleeping!"?

>Also, while we're busily discovering that each individual has his or
>her very own favorite circadian interval, which eventually asserts
>itself after enough time in the closet, we might take a moment to
>wonder how a CREW functions together under those circumstances.  There
<is going to be *work* to be done on the way out and back, and plenty of
<it too (or else we're not getting our money's worth from the ruinously
>expensive mission).  Work requires schedules, especially when you're
>doing things like occultations and timed measurements.

     But that is really the whole point of what I am advocating.  The
astronauts will be there, on the scene, and they must be at the top of
their efficiency.  The mission planners should go out of their way to
design the trip so that this will happen, and if this includes changing
the length of the day, so be it.  Perhaps designing a scaling schedule
that will lengthen the day slowly over the first two weeks and shorten
it back to 'Mars Standard Time' just before orbit, and so on.  If the
astronauts can work on a day that is 10% longer, then perhaps there will
also have to be 10% less food for the trip.  (I know, I'm pushing things
a bit with that one.)  But anything to increase efficiency is a bonus and
must be looked in to.  Regarding the 24 hour cycle as God-given is
coming very close to being xenophobic.

     However, the only people with any kind of experience in that regard
are the Soviets.  Won't it be nice for the Americans to have to depend
on them for a change?  Will the American spirirt be able to handle such
an ego-deflater?  If not, Americans will end up watching the Tass report
of the Soviet landing on Mars within the next 20 or 30 years.

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Arnold Gill                             | If you don't complain to those who  |
Queen's University at Kingston          | implemented the problem, you have   |
gill @ qucdnast.bitnet                  | no right to complain at all !       |
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