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The Smell of the Void

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Justin Alexander Justin Alexander's picture
The Smell of the Void
Apparently astronauts returning from space walks report that it smells of "seared steak and hot metal". Struck me as a nice little authentic descriptive touch that might be useful when running EP. This article also has some similar thoughts on describing activity in zero-g: Water boils in a single, undulating bubble. Flames burn in spheres. Bacteria grows faster and more deadly(!). Carbonated beverages are intensely uncomfortable to drink because the gas doesn't get pushed out of the liquid. Flowers smell different. You sweat constantly and it just builds up on the surface of your skin. And your eyeballs get squashed, causing problems with vision (probably less of an issue for space-adapted biomorphs).
OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture
Thank you. That was an
Thank you. That was an interesting link I never would have found on my own. And REALLY thank you because it lead me to this link; The best youtube vid EVAR! Cat in Space. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=MvU9GZjBTzs&NR=1 :D I very nearly died laughing :D I don't know why they keep throwing it at the wall besides the fact that it obviously deserves to be punished for being a cat. :D

Mea Culpa: My mode of speech can make others feel uninvited to argue or participate. This is the EXACT opposite of what I intend when I post.

Thampsan Thampsan's picture
HAH. Oh god that and the top
HAH. Oh god that and the top comments make this the best video ever. I am relinking that to everyone I know.
Justin Alexander Justin Alexander's picture
Something else I found useful
Something else I found useful: [img]http://imgur.com/9qCGD.jpg[/img]
Justin Alexander Justin Alexander's picture
Nice visualization of how
Nice visualization of how orbits actually work. [img]http://i.imgur.com/Z7FpC.gif[/img]
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Wow, that's beautiful.
Wow, that's beautiful.
Justin Alexander Justin Alexander's picture
Alka Seltzer being added to
Alka Seltzer being added to water in zero gravity. [img]http://i.imgur.com/UVmrnvy.gif[/img]
Justin Alexander Justin Alexander's picture
The sounds of the planets, as
The sounds of the planets, as recorded by NASA. (The weird thing? 10 days before the Fall all of the planets except Neptune suddenly screamed in these recordings. It literally sounded exactly like a human screaming. But the recordings were all purged during the Fall. A few pirate copies have been floating around, but whenever one gets up on the 'net it gets targeted by a memetic virus and wiped within a few days.)
Justin Alexander Justin Alexander's picture
This is to scale:
This is to scale: [img]http://i.imgur.com/eRufCgb.jpg[/img] (Supposedly, anyway. I haven't double-checked it.) And: [img]http://i.imgur.com/UKarTBe.jpg[/img]
Justin Alexander Justin Alexander's picture
An interesting article on the
An interesting article on the modern equivalent of [url=http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/rat-breeders-meet-the-men-who... private spimes[/url].
The Doctor The Doctor's picture
There is also a small but
There is also a small but burgeoning problem of people hacking public securicams (usually Cisco IP cameras that somebody plugged directly into the public Net), downloading footage (raw .mpg) and distributing it.
Justin Alexander Justin Alexander's picture
What happens when your wring
[url=http://boingboing.net/2013/04/18/what-happens-when-you-wring-ou.html]What happens when your wring out a wash cloth in space.[/url] Very, very cool.
Rockheimr Rockheimr's picture
Fascinating stuff - love the
Fascinating stuff - love the 'smell of space', and interesting stuff indeed re how water and fire acts in zero-g.
Justin Alexander Justin Alexander's picture
People sleeping in zero-g
People sleeping in zero-g need to maintain airflow around their heads. If they don't, there's nothing to move the carbon dioxide they're exhaling away from their head and it will slowly build up. So it sounds like Koreans who believe in fan death are going to have a bad time in space.
Decivre Decivre's picture
Justin Alexander wrote:People
Justin Alexander wrote:
People sleeping in zero-g need to maintain airflow around their heads. If they don't, there's nothing to move the carbon dioxide they're exhaling away from their head and it will slowly build up. So it sounds like Koreans who believe in fan death are going to have a bad time in space.
Airflow is going to be a big issue in space. Not just for people and whatnot, but food refrigeration, computer cooling systems, and a multitude of other issues which surprisingly rely on the fundamental aspects of gravity. Who would have thought that "heat rises, density sinks" would be such a game changer when it's not around? But that's just the tip of the hat. Wait until the masses start living in space, and people are [b]required[/b] to start exercising regularly. Rapidly shifting to a boneless muscle-free blob is a terrible way to die just because you didn't want to do jumping jacks in an odd suspender machine that tries to simulate gravity. I really hope that genetic engineering can solve that problem.
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
The Green Slime The Green Slime's picture
In a recent thread that
In a recent thread that touched on this OneTrikPony posted some very promising studies being done in artificially boosting muscle mass and preventing bone loss in zero-g. It looks like we'll likely see major reductions in the physical tolls of space living in the next decade or so. There'll likely still be the issue though, no matter how successful we are at genetically modifying our meat and bones to resist deterioration, of preserving motor skills necessary to moving our bodies under load - and that's really a function of the brain moreso than the body. Putting even a perfectly-adapted space human who has spent years in micrograv into 1g conditions and asking them to bend down and pick a tennis ball up off the floor would be like you or I doing a standing backflip into a handstand. Most healthy young people will have more than enough strength in their muscles to do the gymnastic feat, but unless you've trained that specific skill from a young age the neurological connections needed to apply that strength and steer your bodyweight just won't be present. Having muscle mass doesn't necessarily mean the brain knows what to do with it - if that were the case physiotherapists would be replaced by steroids, and Ronnie Coleman would be the most healthy and athletic human in the world. So physical education in zero-g will always be imperative, unless the plan is to never go back into a gravity environment, at which point there's as much sense staying in this prehistoric monkey body as there would be to keep pedaling a bike when you're floating in the sea.
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Maybe this is a reason a lot
Maybe this is a reason a lot of people have a puppet sock and a program for their Muse to run them through callisthenics while they are dozing off in simspace... "OK, here is the problem. You know the exercise module we supplied everyone with? It has a zero-day exploit, and now somebody turned all the lazy citizens into a zombie fighting force. "
Extropian
Decivre Decivre's picture
Arenamontanus wrote:Maybe
Arenamontanus wrote:
Maybe this is a reason a lot of people have a puppet sock and a program for their Muse to run them through callisthenics while they are dozing off in simspace...
Such a configuration would certainly reduce the cost of entry for being fit and healthy. And might have far reaching consequences depending on how effective your muse might be at exercise. "I spent the last 6 years playing a virtual MMO, and now I'm an Olympic bodybuilder!"
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
Justin Alexander Justin Alexander's picture
Click through to this gallery
Click through to this gallery to see the immense amount of detail that can be packed into one photo if the resolution is high enough. This sequence is all taken from one photo: [img]http://i.imgur.com/jBq6Sod.gif[/img] Here's the source image of Dubai. And here's one of London. (If you zoom in, you can actually see the people riding the London Eye.) I bring this up as an example of what type of visual data will be considered completely disposable in the pantopticon of Eclipse Phase.
Justin Alexander Justin Alexander's picture
Flying airplanes on various
Justin Alexander Justin Alexander's picture
Earth as seen from Saturn.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/CWDYFwa.jpg[/img] Earth as seen from Saturn.
OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture
has anyone seen an
has anyone seen an explanation of the blue/purple glow at the bottom of the frame? In other pictures it's in the middle of the frame clear across the sky. Doesn't look like lens flare. What causes it?

Mea Culpa: My mode of speech can make others feel uninvited to argue or participate. This is the EXACT opposite of what I intend when I post.

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
OneTrikPony wrote:has anyone
OneTrikPony wrote:
has anyone seen an explanation of the blue/purple glow at the bottom of the frame? In other pictures it's in the middle of the frame clear across the sky. Doesn't look like lens flare. What causes it?
I think that is more dust, probably the very diffuse E ring. If you look at http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap061016.html it is pretty clear. Slate seems to agree: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/07/23/earth_from_afar_cass... Normally you don't see it, since most pictures are not backlit and the ice particles mostly reflect the light forward. Light scattering is a surprisingly messy business.
Extropian
OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture
That makes sense, Thank you!
That makes sense, Thank you! That's been nagging at me. I didn't understand the distances involved and the shots from behind Saturn really makes it look like the flare of the E-ring is in a different plane.

Mea Culpa: My mode of speech can make others feel uninvited to argue or participate. This is the EXACT opposite of what I intend when I post.

Justin Alexander Justin Alexander's picture
And this is a stop-motion
[img]http://i.imgur.com/l018aYN.jpg[/img] And this is a stop-motion movie constructed from photographs that really demonstrate the volcano on Io that you're looking at there: [img]http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/737686main_051407_loop.gif[/img]
Justin Alexander Justin Alexander's picture
Even in the world of today
Even in the world of today there are materials that can do mind-boggling things. Here's a video demontration of the space shuttle's thermal tiles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp9Yax8UNoM
Justin Alexander Justin Alexander's picture
This is a very large GIF,
This is a very large GIF, showing the orbit of a "near miss" asteroid: [img]http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/j002e3/j002e3d.gif[/img] It makes me think of an asteroid (or asteroid-like object) following a similar that delivers some sort of exsurgent payload whenever it draws close enough (resulting in intermittent breakouts with a pattern that may be initially difficult to identify). EDIT: Correction, this is actually a part of the Apollo 12 rocket. Which, I suppose, makes it even more applicable for a nice exsurgent package.
Justin Alexander Justin Alexander's picture
Size comparison of the Valles
[img]http://astronomy.nmsu.edu/tharriso/ast105/vm_usa.jpg[/img] Size comparison of the Valles Marineris.
Rallan Rallan's picture
Justin Alexander wrote:Nice
Justin Alexander wrote:
Nice visualization of how orbits actually work. [img]http://i.imgur.com/Z7FpC.gif[/img]
I cal shenanigans. Our sun isn't actually moving through space perpendicular to the solar system's plane of the ecliptic. It's more at a sort of funny skewed angle that doens't look nearly as neat and tidy. Also the video that gif comes from is made of pure gonzo insanity.
Justin Alexander Justin Alexander's picture
North America on the "surface
Justin Alexander Justin Alexander's picture
I've been pretty good about
I've been pretty good about creating exotic morphs, but I have a tendency to make the forms fairly static. This video, although using primitive technology compared to what post-Fall humanity will have access to, is inspirational for what can be done on the (trans)human form: http://vimeo.com/103425574
Justin Alexander Justin Alexander's picture
Haven't been here in awhile,
Haven't been here in awhile, but here's an interesting video demonstrating practical gyroscopic stabilization in zero-g: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=92&v=UnpLEnIqj_A
dragoner dragoner's picture
Justin Alexander wrote
Justin Alexander wrote:
Apparently astronauts returning from space walks report that it smells of "seared steak and hot metal". Struck me as a nice little authentic descriptive touch that might be useful when running EP. This article also has some similar thoughts on describing activity in zero...
Astronaut report problems of habit too, such as just releasing something mid air and forgetting it will fall to the floor. Scott Kelly reported space smells like "burning metal", which makes sense as that is exactly what the sun is, a giant metal burning furnace. Not that welding smells bad.
¡No Pasarán!