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Science Fiction
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"Tokyo homeless people reiterate the whole nature of living in Tokyo in cardboard boxes, they're only slightly smaller than Tokyo apartments, and they have almost as many consumer goods. It's a nightmare of boxes within boxes."
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The basic problem is figuring out how to survive the high acceleration maneuvers that spacecraft are capable of - without dying. Amusement park rides hit a maximum of 4 gravities, which is a lot for untrained riders. Accelerations from 4-6 g's for more than a few seconds produce visual impairments and eventually, blackouts.
Some benefits are provided by anti-g suits, which supply pressure to the abdomen and legs, counteracting the tendency for blood to accumulate in those areas. Proper support of the head is essential during extreme acceleration in order to avoid swelling of the sinuses and severe headaches.
The position of the body is very important; most people will pass out at 2 g's if accelerated in a head-first position. (Physiologists calculate that if the gravity of the earth were increased to 3 standard gravities, most people's hearts would be unable to pump blood all the way up to the brain.) Sideways accelerations of up to 10 g's can be tolerated.
Most of us have seen centrifuges used in training pilots (usually a humorous segment of the movie!), but centrifuging people goes back a long way. The origins of centrifugation date back to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Rotating a person by placing him/her along the arm of the centrifuge (which was originally operated manually and later energized by gas power) was believed to be conducive to treating nervous and mental diseases. The first modern human centrifuges were not built until the 1930s. Comment/Join this discussion ( 2 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
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Science Fiction
Timeline
JAXA Int Ball 2 Coming Right Along As Star Wars Remote
'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
Robot Bricklayer Or Passer-By Bricklayer?
'Oscar picked up a trowel. 'I'm the tool for the mortar,' the little trowel squeaked cheerfully.'
Robot Gas Station Attendant Pumps Gas For You
'... he waited for the robotrix attendant to finish fueling up his ship.'
Engineer Creates Crazy Motorized Track Hospital Bed
The Roujin Z system provides care to fully bedridden patients - and then some!
Tiny Flying Robot Weighs Just One Gram
'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
Some Ringworld Configurations Are Stable
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
TRANSFORM Dynamic Furniture Concept Becomes What You Need
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
Harvard Metamaterials Change Structure Instantly
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'
SnapBot Robots - You Choose Their Legs And They Choose Their Gaits
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.
Dino From Magical Toys An AI Companion To Children
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'
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