Things you always wanted to know about space but were too afraid to ask

I was about to comment on a friends blog which required me to find an old notepad file, but instead i found this: A little research pad i'd started into the more intimate details of space.
So I've finished it off and published it, just for you. During my research i discovered this documentary, which you may enjoy if you take an interest in this stuff. Bear in mind it's one of those overdramatic and slightly patronisingly narrated documentaries though.
As you know i like to add links to articles where i heard about stuff, and i have more links i could add, but i actually can't be bothered right now. I will aim to do it tomorrow. That and get round to commenting on that blog.


What do breasts go like in space? Do girls still have to wear bras?

According to the documentary, breasts appear larger in zero gravity. Also women do not need to wear bras, as you'd expect. Breasts also seem to float into a more natural spherical/ dome like shape (and yes i have arrived at that conclusion from studying footage of female astronauts). Girls would probably choose to wear a bra if they're going to be filmed though, in case the nipples show through, or maybe not, if she's shameless like that.


What about willies? What do they go like? Can you still, y'know, get em up?

One of the effects of zero gravity is the even distribution of blood around the body. On earth, blood is drawn away from the head and towards the feet, and the heart pumps hard to force it into body extremities. In zero G, the blood fills everywhere evenly.. meaning more than usual in the penis. This results in astronauts being very prone to erections or having mild erections a lot, and it's supposed to be quite easy to get a proper boner. One astronaut even complained this gave him a lot of pain in the mornings.


Would zero-G affect orgasm in any way?

I haven't found any information on this. You'd have to consider things like muscle atrophy might mean spasms are not as strong, and you'd have to be careful to not accidentally knock yourself around too much of course, but i havent found any proper information on it.


Have people had sex in space yet?

Given that you've got 3-6 intelligent adults, usually including at least one woman, in a small, enclosed space, isolated from the rest of humanity for 6 months, it's pretty hard to imagine sex has never happened. There have been rumours that astronauts and cosmonauts have got it on, but both american and russian agencies deny these claims.

Nasa, being a largely conservative organisation, still seems to consider the subject a big taboo and apparently no astronaut has ever had sex on a mission, and those questioned by the press have denied it. Nasa doesn't officially prohibit sex but seems to discourage it- All activity is logged and american space modules/ shuttles don't allow for much privacy, so it all looks pretty unlikely. Russians, despite being more laidback and seeming to have closer bonded teams, actually forbid sex because of the complications that can arise.
Of course whether anyone ever has got away with on the sly is unknown, and will probably never be officially confirmed.


What do you think sex in space is like?

Apparently the act of sex in space is more difficult than on earth, basically because things fly around and can be pushed away very easily, and sex requires intimacy and everything. Personally i can think of a few solutions to this, namely using velcro walls, handles, straps, sleeping bags etc, but you know the americans.. everything's gotta be a big performance. One woman invented a '2suit', suits that can be worn by people and then attach to each other so you can stay close. It seemed to work but was somewhat a hassle. I dunno, the story of the american million dollar zero-g pen and the russian pencil comes to mind really. Still, i haven't tried it so i don't know.
Cumming in space has got to be messy though. Apparently water droplets will fly all over the station (water is filtered out of the air so this is ok) but you can imagine how unpleasant that might be for other crew members if it were cum.


Can it go wrong?

According to Will Whitehouse of Virgin Galactic, "you can break a penis" if you're not careful.
You've been warned.


Do.. females still menstruate in Zero G?

Despite fantasies about colonising space, Nasa was apparently too scared take women because of concerns that menstruation in zero-G might be dangerous. It was imagined they might get 'backflow', or blood that won't leave the body. When they did send a woman into space, they had her take drugs to stop the cycle.. So for a long time, this was a scary question no one had the guts to answer.

Luckily, it turns out the whole thing isn't a problem at all. Firstly, gravity is not required, muscles do most of the work anyway, so 'backflow' was actually a mythical problem that never existed. Secondly, a tampon acts as a wick and helps to draw out the blood. So there you go, the female system maintains it's full functionality in space.


..What about on the moon and beyond?

This comes from the traditional belief that women's cycles are linked to lunar phases. (The word menstruation actually derives from 'mensis', latin for month, which itself derives from 'mene', greek for moon.) If an organism's system is regulated by something, and that influence is removed- say if they go stand on that something- what happens to it? Does it stop, adjust to a new influence, or carry on as usual anyway?
No human females have left the influence of the moon so no one knows for sure. Actually, its unconfirmed if the moon does regulate womens cycles or if it's all just a coincidence. Many organic systems are linked to lunar phases, either by its tidal effect or its nocturnal light levels, so it's a reasonable theory.. that said i can personally vouch that its not unusual for cycles to have absolutely no synchronisation to the moon whatsoever, and actually women with regular 29.5 day cycles are not in the majority..


Can humans reproduce in space?

It's complicated..

So far no one knows how well humans can reproduce, but we can make guesses based on what we know so far. Various attempts have been made breeding various organisms in space, but it's dodgy. Even plants cannot reproduce reliably- they are prone to abnormalities. The only animals to have reproduced fully (from mating to birth) successfully are fish. Pretty much all Other animals have had problems at some point in the process.
Scientists are working on whittling down exactly which point it is that fails. Fertilisation seems to go well in frogs and mice, but not so well in other animals like sea urchins. Pregnant rats have been sent into space and given birth in zero gravity and produced healthy baby rats, so birth is no issue either. In a mouse breeding experiment, problems occured in embryonic development. Generally the more complex an organism, the more can go wrong, so there may be a lot of problems for humans to consider. In short: The success of reproduction may depend on whether humans can find a solution for that development stage.

As well as zero/ micro-gravity, theres issues such as radiation and the general nature of space life- toxic chemical exposure, the composition of the artificial atmosphere, and all that kinda thing. Nasa has a policy to disqualify pregnant astronauts (i think this means 'bring home' and possibly 'fire'?) on the grounds of these kinds of medical issues. Also, remember 9 months is a long time.. i think longer than any astronaut or cosmonaut has done in one session.


Whats it like if you die in space?

No one has died in space. All space-related deaths have been during launch, re entry, or tests on the ground. Still, if you're curious, there's more than one way to theoretically die in space. If you want to explore some of them, there's a game for that.


By the way, whats the difference between Astronauts and Cosmonauts?

Nationality. Astronauts are american (though the term can be used generally), and cosmonauts are russian. Taikonauts are chinese, and indian astronauts will be vyomanauts. There's others like spationauts (french) and i'm sure the list goes on, but i can't be bothered to go through every country's native word for 'space' and stick 'naut' on the end. You get the picture.

Musical Love

Recently my posts have got more critical and political, i think, even for me. No one should be more pissed off about this than me.

So on a completely different subject matter, i was wondering. Are many people into Dubstep and/ or IDM? I have been into it for a while but I still don't think i have enough friends to share my enthusiasm for the scene with. So, in my lonely desperation, i'm going to forcefully share it with you regardless of how you may have responded to that last question.

So heres a few tracks from my recent hearing adventures. Please, do give all of the tracks a go. Theyre all different. Except for the the first two, theyre very similar. But the others are all different. From each other.


Wisp - Uriollach - (We Miss You) (Rephlex Records)

Wisp - Morning Myth - (We Miss You)


AZ Rotator - Stem Cell - (Indefinable Sugar Cube) (az rotator)

Vancans - Hipster (Vystear Remix)

Eight Frozen Modules - Trust These Apart - (Crumbling & Responding)

Contorsionist - Five Corners - (Departures)



For those of you with the darker, more overactive imaginations (best enjoyed with headphones):
Milanese - One Eye - (Extend)

Reso - Extroversion - (Small Music)

Succumb to your TV!

Watch your TV, and listen to your TV! It shows you about society, and how to get by in life! It tells you everything you need to know! You and your friends should not attempt to look anywhere else for this information! Do not attempt to think critically about what you see on TV! Do not attempt to question or analyse any of the stories or personalities being shown to you on your TV! And above all else, when in doubt about anything, always, always ask yourself that important question: 'What would my favourite TV character do??'

What People in Southampton think

..they make themselves clear

Edit: Oh wow! Some google research shows people across the nation are having issues with this poster, and there's even a website for people to submit their own humorous renditions!

Snow!

Guys!!! Theres snow!! YAAAAAY!! This is the first snow we've had, finally the winter is complete!


This picture was taken at midnight.. Look at how bright it is! And it's not full moon or anything- it's actually cloudy. I guess all the snow is reflecting the street lights, which is reflecting off the clouds, which is why its so weird and bright. Doesn't seem to be any shadows. Its so strange.. but cool..

Those damn liberal intellectuals and their problem solving bias..

A friend recently introduced me to this fella Stephen Colbert. (if you're not sure whats going on there, see this vid) which has kind of switched me back on to observing the whole liberal vs conservative war in america.

Then reading this article on Palin, i see things are really quite ridiculous. I quote: 'they believe [she] might still be able to rescue the nation from "Liberal intellectuals"'. That's right people, "Intellectual" is now a derogatory term. How desperate do you have to be to start using people's intelligence as some kind of insult? And if you believe intellectualism is some kind of crime, surely there's blasphemy in having rational opinions yourself?

But this is the point where the curious part of me says: 'wait, what if intellectualism IS bad? Perhaps there is some virtue in not solving every problem and some benefit to humanity to resist change? Perhaps allowing stability and the natural course of unchecked human behaviour to play out IS the ultimate solution? Maybe survival of the fittest is what we need, living in small, stable communities and all that?'

But then, i saw things, which reminded me of one vital issue: Humans are a social species, meaning if someone fucks up, they're usually fucking it up for someone else.. and if they're living in a conservative community, no ones going to let a lesson resulting in deaths of innocent people change anything. It is not 'survival of the fittest', it's 'complacency of the people who are ok with dumbasses who fuck it up for everyone else and won't to do anything about it.'

Allow me to demonstrate, with a documentary about trains. Warning: a few disturbing scenes, and it's rather long. I don't expect you to really watch it, but it's essentially this: Small town america cannot be trusted with trains, especially at level crossings in the middle of towns.

Level crossings in the middle of towns = really not so great. Some incidents are the victim's fault, but plenty others are out of their control. Solution? Build a bridge. Cheaper, subtler solution? Make barriers that cover BOTH sides of the road. Their response, as seen in part 2/5? We don't want to change the town.

About here, i realise this isn't about rationality, this isn't about survival of the fittest. This is about stopping those damn liberal intellectuals and their clever little solutions. Becuase if we start listening to the rational, intelligent voice on everything, sooner or later we'll have to start rationalising the consequences of everything we do, and then we might have to realise our moral obligation to the rest of the world because surprisingly everyone else's rights are actually equal to ours.. and you don't want that at all. Dang those intellectuals! what do THEY know about the world, huh!? They obviously all pray to satan before cooking up this rational problem-solving witchcraftery.

Then, as if reading my very thoughts, i see this comment:

Landaux (1 month ago)
Only the liberal activists put shows on like these that want to give trains a bad rep. They show no love for trains in their 'green' world.


On top of everything else, i'm instantly offended. Trains are awesome machines, they're 'greener' than cars, and theyre much safer than road travel, too. Also, like cars and planes and such, they were designed by intelligent, intellectual people. Absolutely nothing wrong with trains, i support them. It's just a few dumbshits in america won't use them properly, because they apparently have no intellectual capacity and they're damn proud of it.

So, hopefully you now see the fallacy of such silly, woolly headed thinking. Sometimes, i like to imagine the illuminati really is real, they do control the world, and they are simply molding the conservative right wing into this insane fundamentalist joke so as to completely strip them of any credibility and remove them from the way of human progress down the enlightened left path. But i sure do have some silly fantasies, and i'm probably just being all intellectual and rational which is like, totally way stupid.

*insert your own gogol bordello comment here because i cannot bring myself to do so*

People might notice that i haven't really shown my face on the site, apart from one bizarre incident a couple of weeks ago. The reason for this is simply, if i allowed myself half the chance, i'd be a total camwhore, which i don't really want. That said, here's 8 pictures of me being a total camwhore!

But seriously, i got a reason.

I recently dyed my hair, because i was sick of looking at my face. Tbh I wasn't sure for a while about the results, or if i should die it brown again.
Thing is the particular shade is an iridescent purple, so its colour kind of shifts depending on the lighting and the state of my hair. It ranges from bluey purple to a weird purplish gingery colour, though not quite as gingery as it's come out in these pictures. So i've taken a range of images in different light levels and stuff so you can see what its kind of like. You also get to see a picture of me wearing a bit of eye make up, an unusual event in issi world, so never say i never spoil you, you lucky people.