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by SideburnsOfDoom 38 days ago
There is also zero evidence to oppose it. We know some things from experience about the long term (1 year or so) effects on human health of 0g (tl;dr: not good).

We know very very little about the long-term effects of 0.166g on human health, because it's never been done. (best guess: also not good).
3 comments
robotresearcher 37 days ago
Mice blastocysts develop into embryos in orbital microgravity:

https://www.space.com/international-space-station-mouse-embr...

Skepticism is good, but ignoring related work weakens an argument.

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schainks 37 days ago
This is a blastocyst, then back to earth experiment. No organ development?
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robotresearcher 37 days ago
Blastocyst to embryo. It's not in itself evidence that humans can grow in space. It's evidence that the early stages of mammal morphogenesis work fine. So why conclude without evidence that human morphogenesis probably won't? It's too early to say either way.
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addaon 38 days ago
> We know some things from experience about the long term (1 year or so) effects on human health of 0g (tl;dr: not good).

But we don't know anything about the long term effect of 0g on human fetuses, which live in a very different environment than the humans we have tested. They live in an environment that combines fluid immersion and surface support, with buoyancy playing a major role -- which could (or could not -- absence of evidence etc) seriously change the importance of gravity for development.

I'd be more concerned about the impact of zero and low gravity on newborns than fetuses.

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SideburnsOfDoom 38 days ago
> I'd be more concerned about the impact of zero and low gravity on newborns than fetuses

I agree with that. If (and it's if) it turns out that zero and low gravity are OK for foetal development, then there's the around 20 years of development that comes after birth and before adulthood, where "fluid immersion" is not part of the normal development process.

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IAmBroom 38 days ago
> There is also zero evidence to oppose it.

That's how reason works. "You can't prove there isn't a silver, bubblegum-farting unicorn living on the asteroid belt" doesn't make it true. Nor more plausible.

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SideburnsOfDoom 38 days ago
Thank you for your restatement of Russell's teapot (1). As an aside that's about unfalsifiable claims and the burden of proof, not logic in general.

But the idea that this is "Nor more plausible" is wrong - there are good reasons to believe that human health and development that has occurred under 1g throughout our entire evolutionary history could go wrong when deprived of that, is in fact a highly plausible idea.

The "extraordinary claim" would be that there is no impact on human health and development from living entirely in (for example) lunar 0.16g.

I'm all for looking into it getting the data, but no space agency has yet constructed the required fractional G rotating structure. Nasa has made plans, see e.g. Nautilus-X (2) and AGOS study (3) but nothing has yet been built "due to budget constraints".

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautilus-X

3) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319164912_AGOS-Arti...

> By changing the rotation rate AGOS Stage 1 can be used as a testbed for different g-levels and their influence on human health.

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