Virgin Galactic successfully reaches space

Re:Virgin Galactic successfully reaches space by dogma1138 on Thursday December 13, 2018 @01:20PM (#18674655)

If you drive a car you can go above 1g when accelerating or breaking, especially with the latter.

Rollercoasters can do over 6g which is about twice the g force for most manned launches iirc.

In fact if you play any sort of ball sports you likely experience jerk movement well above 1g nearly all the time, and you don’t even want to get started with full contact sports like (American) Football.

It’s not just how many g’s you pull but also the duration, the longer it is the more stress it puts on your body but nearly anyone without any major health conditions should be able to experience 2-3g for a fairly prolonged time without adverse effects and much much higher momentary g force than that as long as you are securely strapped.

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Re:Virgin Galactic successfully reaches space by jsharf on Thursday December 13, 2018 @01:49PM (#18674896)

1g is the strength of the Earth's gravity, so aren't we always constantly experiencing 1g downwards? Like, every time we jump or lift our feet?

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Re:Virgin Galactic successfully reaches space by ajnin on Thursday December 13, 2018 @02:18PM (#18675124)

You're experiencing 1g most of the time in everyday life, when not moving. When you jump, you're briefly experiencing a few g downward while you push up on your legs to go against gravity, then briefly zero g for the short amount of time where your body does not touch the ground and you actually follow a ballistic trajectory, then finally again a few g upward as you land.

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Re:Virgin Galactic successfully reaches space by pdonis on Thursday December 13, 2018 @11:07PM (#18678404)

> When you jump, you're briefly experiencing a few g downward while you push up on your legs to go against gravity, then briefly zero g for the short amount of time where your body does not touch the ground and you actually follow a ballistic trajectory, then finally again a few g upward as you land.

You have the takeoff part backwards; you experience a few g upward when you jump. If you're just standing on Earth, you experience 1 g upward, not downward; the force you feel is not gravity pulling down on you, it's the Earth pushing up on you and preventing you from free-falling downward in response to gravity. When you jump up, your legs exert additional upward force.

(When you land, your legs exert upward force again to stop you from falling down any more, so you have that part right, as well as the zero g part.)

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Re:Virgin Galactic successfully reaches space by dogma1138 on Thursday December 13, 2018 @03:49PM (#18675951)

Yes ofc, you also experience a momentary g force much higher than 1g otherwise you wouldn’t be able to jump since you need to counter gravity.

You also then experience higher than 1g forces when you land as the deceleration is abrupt.

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Re:Virgin Galactic successfully reaches space by craftyguy on Thursday December 13, 2018 @01:22PM (#18674668)

You don't even have to drive a car, you can ride in one too!

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Re:Virgin Galactic successfully reaches space by TomK32 on Thursday December 13, 2018 @01:30PM (#18674724)

That's what 224g look like when you stop going in circles with your car https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVpux5JxqEk

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Re:Virgin Galactic successfully reaches space by dogma1138 on Thursday December 13, 2018 @01:34PM (#18674759)

For automotive sports high g (5+) turns are pretty normal there is a good reason why F1 drivers loose like 10 lbs during a race it’s an extremely taxing activity you need to be in insanely good shape and condition your body to be able to withstand those forces for the 1.5-2 hours of a race.

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Re:Virgin Galactic successfully reaches space by ansible on Thursday December 13, 2018 @02:22PM (#18675156)

> For automotive sports high g (5+) turns are pretty normal there is a good reason why F1 drivers loose like 10 lbs during a race it’s an extremely taxing activity...

It is an extremely taxing activity, but the weight loss is mostly water.

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Re:Virgin Galactic successfully reaches space by dogma1138 on Thursday December 13, 2018 @03:45PM (#18675910)

Yes ofc due to sweat I wasn’t implying that you somehow can lose 10lbs of tissue in 2 hours.

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Re:Virgin Galactic successfully reaches space by darkerside on Thursday December 13, 2018 @02:23PM (#18675168)

Hard to believe it's not water weight being sweated out. Marathon runners don't lose 10 pounds in a race that is very physically demanding.

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Re:Virgin Galactic successfully reaches space by dogma1138 on Thursday December 13, 2018 @03:57PM (#18676026)

It’s sweat, I’m not sure how much sweat marathon runners sweat out during a race, especially since many of them dehydrate before the race to lose some weight but I wouldn’t also bet on a marathon being more taxing than an F1 race its both are very hard activities as driving a formula car takes a lot of strength.

“Believe it or not the driver has to apply over 930kg of pedal load per lap in Canada - an incredible 65,590kg over the course of the 70-lap race - and it’s all down to the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve’s unique blend of high-speed straights and tight bends.“

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/features/2015/6/under-pre...

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Re:Virgin Galactic successfully reaches space by tempestn on Thursday December 13, 2018 @03:04PM (#18675515)

It is water weight being sweated out. Largely because it's a very taxing activity.

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Re:Virgin Galactic successfully reaches space by dTal on Thursday December 13, 2018 @04:50PM (#18676449)

If you drive a car you will go over 1g, the second you touch the accelerator, because you're already at 1g at rest.

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Re:Virgin Galactic successfully reaches space by lisper on Thursday December 13, 2018 @01:26PM (#18674697)

No experience or training is needed. The Zero-G folks have two very clever tricks for making the transition in and out of zero gravity much more benign than you would think. First, the aircraft has no windows, so you can't see how radically you are pitching up and down. And second, during the transitions in and out of weightlessness, they have you lie on your back, so the blood does not rush in and out of your head. It just feels like you're being pressed down onto the floor for a while, and then over a period of a few seconds, the pressure just goes away and you just gently float up. If you've ever ridden a roller coaster, this is much more benign than that.

They also ease you into it by doing a few 1/3 G (Mars gravity) and 1/6 G (lunar gravity) parabolas before going to zero G.

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Re:Virgin Galactic successfully reaches space by sgc on Thursday December 13, 2018 @01:42PM (#18674829)

For me 90-95% of going to space would be to look at earth and the universe, so I would never be in the market for a suborbital joy ride, or this. I recognize that for some this weightlessness might be a large part of the experience.

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Re:Virgin Galactic successfully reaches space by thousandautumns on Thursday December 13, 2018 @03:52PM (#18675979)

I wonder if there would be much of a market for the zero-G simulation plane experience, where they have faux-windows that are just ultra high-definition video of the Earth/space. I'd have to imagine with the already strange experience of simulated 0G and the quality of video technology these days, it would be hard to tell the difference with actual space flight. Though it would certainly lose the romantic notion of actually being in space.

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Re:Virgin Galactic successfully reaches space by Jach on Thursday December 13, 2018 @01:53PM (#18674938)

It was safe enough for Stephen Hawking a decade ago: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11730-stephen-hawking...

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Re:Virgin Galactic successfully reaches space by sandworm101 on Thursday December 13, 2018 @05:47PM (#18676846)

Take it from a pilot: the average healthy person has no trouble with a few seconds of 5g, even 7g. With a few minutes of training, you can sustain that for a while, long enough for a loop or roll. I'm no marathon runner and had no issues doing 6ish Gs during sustained acrobatics (cuban 8s etc). Fighter pilots have to sustain higher numbers (9g) and remain alert enough to continue fighting, a far higher requirement than being pax/cargo on a suborbital.

FYI, being "fit" doesn't necessarily help. People with higher blood pressure actually do a little better than those without.

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Re:Virgin Galactic successfully reaches space by crooked-v on Thursday December 13, 2018 @03:29PM (#18675770)

For a test drive of sorts, go to a county fair and take a couple of rides on the Gravitron. That's up to 3 Gs for several minutes at a time and safe enough to be a childrens' ride.

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