Astronauts

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Rubric: [[file:Space Exploration Adventure Rubric.doc]], [[file:Space Exploration Adventure Rubric.pdf]]

 * Written Information **: As you enter text, the area will expand. Make sure to check the required details of the assignment and review the rubric (see document links) to self-assess your work. Your paragraphs will be in block format, enter one return between paragraphs. The tab key, indent feature will not appear when typing directly into the wiki page.

One type of test, as you see in the **first picture below,** is testing your body in a simulation of weightlessness. This tests **how your body will adapt in near zero gravity.** The woman below is trying to stabilize her body while remaining weightless. Another type of training, also in a **picture below,** is a emergency bailout simulation, where you practice bailing out of the rocket quickly into space, or in the picture, a pool. **Other types of training include using machines like the Shuttle Mission Simulator, or the SMS. The SMS simulators are machines that mimic sounds, scenes, and the motion of the shuttle to give the astronauts the real experience of what's going to happen to them without really going into space. Also, there are machines that let you feel how it will be to ride in the cockpit. All this is to prepare you for the real deal.** Outer space. When out in space, you aren't allowed to bring food from earth into the shuttle. So what do astronauts eat while out in orbit? Well, they are able to eat many' many foods. **The food is prepackaged, and uncooked. So it is put on a food tray and placed in a special oven in one of the cabins on the ship. The meals, though, need to contain the nutrients to help the human body function in zero gravity. Sadly, the food wasn't always fresh. It would quickly become rotten and the astronauts couldn't eat it. But, engineers are inventing new ways to package food to keep it fresh for up to 5 years! That will surely help. Though, early on, there was concern about whether the astronauts could swallow solid food, so instead, astronauts had to eat pureed foods, like applesauce, through tubes. Although today, with the interior of the spacecraft more advanced, astronauts are able to eat bacon, spaghetti and meatballs and beef.** The last thing an astronaut really has to do is learn to communicate with people outside the spacecraft, like the space station. The space station is the most complex aerospace project in history. It is an orbiting research facility that is above the Earth's surface. Did you know that if the space station was on Earth, it would weigh1,006,658 pounds? And that is really everything astronauts have to deal with in space!
 * Life In Space**
 * You need to do a lot of things to become an astronaut. Testing, eating, and making sure you are healthy and ready to go. But first, you have to go through hours of vigorous training exercises to test your ability if you were in space.**
 * Astronauts are already in danger, but being injured in space puts them at even greater risk.** Why? Because there is no ER in space. **And even returning back to Earth is very dangerous. This was proven with a study with monkeys, where emergency surgery within hours of returning to Earth could prove fatal. Also the concerns of emergency in space are heightened. For example, two monkeys went up in a space shuttle. On their first day back to Earth, the monkeys were given an anesthetic, something never done before. Sadly, the first monkey died, and the other suffered serious complications. Not good. Then, there are plenty of ways for accidents to happen aboard the spaceship, mainly fires that would release toxic fumes that would kill an astronaut. These electrical fires are an ever present hazard, and there is no safety to which to run. They also discovered that some emergency equipment aboard the spacecraft was inadequate.** **This equipment was likely to fail unless the patient was strapped down, which would steal valuable time in an emergency. So if you are injured in space, better hope beyond hope. Because the chances of pulling through in an actual emergency are not to bright!**
 * Another obstacle astronauts have to over come is their clothing. It's huge, and weighs a lot! Although it went through many many changes in the past, today's moon suit has 21 layers! It took at least an hour to get on because of all the special precautions they had to make so the astronauts wouldn't freeze or burn in space, like a special helmet to ward of the sun and insulate them. All in all, the moon suit now weighs about 57 pounds total. That's really heavy!**

Visuals Make sure to include the location of your image; add a caption with this information
 * [[image:http://callisto.ggsrv.com/imgsrv/FastFetch/UBER1/00126920 width="504" height="321" caption=""Astronaut training aboard KC-135." Space Sciences. Ed. Pat Dasch. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2010. Gale Science In Context. Web. 7 Mar. 2012."]] || [[image:http://callisto.ggsrv.com/imgsrv/FastFetch/UBER1/00127376-T3 width="224" height="217" caption=""Astronaut opens a can of food." Space Sciences. Ed. Pat Dasch. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2010. Gale Science In Context. Web. 8 Mar. 2012."]] ||  ||
 * [[image:http://callisto.ggsrv.com/imgsrv/FastFetch/UBER1/00123554 width="373" height="244" caption="International Space Station floating above the Earth"]] || [[image:http://callisto.ggsrv.com/imgsrv/FastFetch/UBER1/00126906 width="435" height="325" caption=""An astronaut in emergency bailout training." Space Sciences. Ed. Pat Dasch. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2010. Gale Science In Context. Web. 7 Mar. 2012."]] ||  ||

**Works Cited** **Sources** : Include the source information for all of the magazine articles, reference sources (encyclopedias) and web site pages that were used to complete your project. The source information for encyclopedias may be found at the end or beginning of each entry in iCONN. When using periodicals, the publication information will be at the beginning or end of the article. This needs to be formatted for MLA standards. If it is not labeled 'Source Citation' it can be formatted appropriately by using EasyBib.com. You should use EasyBib for the web sites. The final Works Cited should be listed in alphabetical order by the first word of the source citation. "Milky Way." //Kids InfoBits Presents: Astronomy//. Gale, 2008. Reproduced in Kids InfoBits. Detroit: Gale, 2012. "The Milky Way." //WMAP's Universe//. NASA, 28 June 2010. Web. 06 Mar. 2012. . Vergano, Dan. "Galaxy Bracketed by Big Bubbles." //USA Today// 10 Nov. 2010: 05A. Web. 6 Mar. 2012.
 * Sample:**

COPYRIGHT 2002 Macmillan Reference USA, COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale, Cengage Learning.
 * Your Source List:**

Source Citation:
"Simulation." //Space Sciences//. Ed. Pat Dasch. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2009. //Gale Science In Context//. Web. 8 Mar. 2012. . "Weekly lab." //Science Weekly// 6 Nov. 1996: 2. //Gale Science In Context//. Web. 8 Mar. 2012. //Sciences//. Ed. Pat Dasch. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2010. //Gale Science In Context//. Web. 8 Mar. 2012. Witze, Alexandre. "Space eats: astronaut journey to Mars requires new age nibbles." //Science News// 19 Nov. 2011: 20+. //Gale Science In Context//. Web. 8 Mar. 2012. Nowak, Rachel. "There's no ER in orbit." //New Scientist// 166.2236 (2000): 4. //Gale Science In Context//. Web. 8 Mar. 2012. International Space Station." //Astronomy & Space: From the Big Bang to the Big Crunch//. Gale, 2011. //Gale Science In Context//. Web. 8 Mar. 2012. "International space station (ISS)." //World of Earth Science//. Ed. K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner. Detroit: Gale, 2007. //Gale Science In Context//. Web. 9 Mar. 2012.

**Topic: Research Focus**


 * What is your topic? Astronauts and Life in Space**
 * State the focus of your research: How do astronauts survive in space?**

**Notes** ==== Include notes, statistics and facts that you will use to write your final paper. You may want to label sections of your notes to help you be more organized as you write. As you take notes from a source, you should list the source citation in the Works Cited section above. ====

Picture 1: Astronaut stablizing during a period of weightlessness. Picture 2: An emergancy bailout training. Training: There are SMS simulators that mimic sounds, scenes and motion of the shuttle to give the astronauts the feel of what's happening without going into space. SMS stands for shuttle mission simulator. Picture 3:An astronaiut opening a can of food. Note: The astronauts in space are able to eat many foods. Theyare prepackaged, put on special food tray and heated in a special oven. The meals need to contain nutirents to help the human body funtion in zero gravity. Engineers are inventing new ways to package food to keep it fresh for up to five years! Astronauts aren't supposed to diet. They need tastier optoions. Inside the spacecraft there is equipment necessary for drinking, eating, sleeping, going to the bathroom, and exercising. Before the early Mercury flights, there was concern whether eating would be affected by a zero-gravity environment. Scientists did not know whether people would be able to swallow solid food or if it would get stuck in their throats. As a result, the early astronauts ate pureed foods, such as applesauce, out of squeeze tubes.

In later Mercury flights, after scientists realized the only problem was keeping food on the spoon, astronauts ate from plastic sacks of freeze-dried foods that could be injected with water. As interior space in the craft increased, the crews ate better and more varied meals. Today, International Space Station crews might have bacon and eggs for breakfast, spaghetti and meatballs for lunch, and barbecued beef for dinner Sickness: if you get sick, your in trouble. No ER in space. Astronauts are already in danger, but injured in space puts them at even greater risk. A study with monkeys suggests that emergency surgery within hours of returning to Earth could prove fatal, while an international team of anaesthetists claims that medical equipment on the space shuttle for keeping an astronaut breathing in an emergency is inadequate. Concerns about emergencies in space have been heightened following the joint Russian-American Bion 11 mission in 1997, in which two monkeys flew aboard the space shuttle. The monkeys were given a general anaesthetic on their first day back on Earth--something that had never been tried before. One monkey died and the other suffered serious complications. If a seriously ill astronaut had to be rushed back to Earth for emergency treatment, "clinicians should be aware that there are potentially some unique anaesthetic risks involved," says William Norfleet, a space medicine expert at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. There is also plenty of scope for accidents on spacecraft, particularly fires which could release toxic fumes that stop an astronaut breathing. "Electrical fires are an ever-present hazard and there is nowhere to run. They discovered that the equipment carried on the space shuttle--an endotracheal tube and a laryngoscope to insert it, similar to those commonly used on Earth--is likely to fail unless the patient is strapped down, which would take valuable time in an emergency. Space station: an orbiting research facility above the surface of the Earth.The International Space Station (ISS) is the most complex international aerospace project in history. Sixteen countries contribute to this massive structure.On Earth's surface, the ISS would weigh 1,006,658 lb.The ISS is designed to allow humans to live in space for long periods of time; it contains a laboratory for both scientific and engineering experiments.Long-range plans for the ISS include using it as a spaceport where spacecraft can dock to transfer people, cargo, and fuel without having to reenter Earth's atmosphere. Space equiptment and clothing:Temperatures vary greatly. Sudden accelerations and decelerations occur. Sophisticated equipment is required to allow people to survive this hostile environment. Ever since the first manned Mercury spacecraft flight in 1961, scientists have tried to design space equipment that makes space flight safer and more comfortable for human beings.During the Mercury missions, astronauts depended on a dual life support system, one that maintained temperature and pressure in the spacecraft cabin and one that did the same inside the user's suit. The early spacesuit was bulky, with many layers that made movement difficult for the astronauts. Air was propelled through the suit and came out through the helmet. Next it passed through a charcoal bed and a chemical scrubber that purified it. The air was then cooled and fed back into the suit. In case of sudden leakage or overuse, oxygen from a pair of high-pressure bottles was available. The Moon suit had twenty one layers. The outer layer was made of fiberglass fabric. The next layer was rubber and was pressure-tight. Air pressure was maintained by tubes carrying oxygen that were also used for breathing. Water tubes threaded through the underwear and kept the wearer cool. Both air pressure and water tubes were connected to a backpack where water, oxygen, and control equipment were stored. Under it all the astronaut wore a urine-collection assembly. On top of it all was a helmet with a thin gold coating to act as a sun visor.These suits weighed fifty seven pounds (twenty six kilograms) on Earth, but only one-sixth as much in the Moon's weaker gravity. It took one hour just to get into them.The suit worn inside the craft had only six layers, with the outer layer made of fireproof Teflon™.