When astronauts type in orbit, does microgravity mean they have to do
extra work to return their fingers to the keys? Or does gravity play
only a minor role in touch-typing?

This could be partially tested on Earth by arranging a keyboard in a
vertical or inverted position; the problem is that your arms would
fatigue in that posture.

I ask because microgravity affects many common postures: You sleep
against a firm slightly-padded board, not a mattress. You stand to
eat, feet strapped down, with your knees naturally bent; sitting is
uncomfortable. Most gross-motor activities without gravity involve
twice the effort.

(Disclaimer: this was true in the early 1980s, since I'm referencing a
book on the Shuttle Experience written then. NASA and its cosmonaut
equivalents may have discovered differently in the past 20 years.)

***

This is the sort of thing that people could ask astronauts on blogs,
if they had blogs. Do blogs constitute part of NASA's astronaut
outreach nowadays? Sort of, but they're undated:

<http://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/astronauts/journals_astronauts.html>

Given limited orbit-to-ground bandwidth, text blogs would be an
efficient way to communicate; but given the hyper-planned schedule of
an STS or ISS mission, astronauts probably don't have the luxury of
composing reflective blog entries. And they'd want to use a local
server, then mirror the completed entries to the ground, to avoid
excess HTTP traffic.

Wait, here's one from Ed Lu of Expedition 7. Also undated, ugh.

<http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/crew/exp7/luletters/>

***

<http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/launch/sts-121/launch-vlcc_070106.html>
"NASA's Launch Blog - Mission STS-121 07.01.06"

If you didn't already know that the STS-121 mission was in July 2006,
how could interpret that datestamp? Is it ordered as mm.dd.yy
(American style), dd.mm.yy (European), or yy.mm.dd (computer)?

In article <so1sq31mnq2gg7ff1b1eqm84j9bfohnvj1@4ax.com>,
pethorne@comcast.net says...
> When astronauts type in orbit, does microgravity mean they have to do
> extra work to return their fingers to the keys? Or does gravity play
> only a minor role in touch-typing?
>
> This could be partially tested on Earth by arranging a keyboard in a
> vertical or inverted position; the problem is that your arms would
> fatigue in that posture.
>
> I ask because microgravity affects many common postures: You sleep
> against a firm slightly-padded board, not a mattress. You stand to
> eat, feet strapped down, with your knees naturally bent; sitting is
> uncomfortable. Most gross-motor activities without gravity involve
> twice the effort.
>
> (Disclaimer: this was true in the early 1980s, since I'm referencing a
> book on the Shuttle Experience written then. NASA and its cosmonaut
> equivalents may have discovered differently in the past 20 years.)
>
> ***
>
> This is the sort of thing that people could ask astronauts on blogs,
> if they had blogs. Do blogs constitute part of NASA's astronaut
> outreach nowadays? Sort of, but they're undated:
>
> <http://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/astronauts/journals_astronauts.html>
>
> Given limited orbit-to-ground bandwidth, text blogs would be an
> efficient way to communicate; but given the hyper-planned schedule of
> an STS or ISS mission, astronauts probably don't have the luxury of
> composing reflective blog entries. And they'd want to use a local
> server, then mirror the completed entries to the ground, to avoid
> excess HTTP traffic.
>
> Wait, here's one from Ed Lu of Expedition 7. Also undated, ugh.
>
> <http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/crew/exp7/luletters/>
>
> ***
>
> <http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/launch/sts-121/launch-vlcc_070106.html>
> "NASA's Launch Blog - Mission STS-121 07.01.06"
>
> If you didn't already know that the STS-121 mission was in July 2006,
> how could interpret that datestamp? Is it ordered as mm.dd.yy
> (American style), dd.mm.yy (European), or yy.mm.dd (computer)?
>

I have not heard of any major problems, astronauts today in orbit now
blog, get and write email and surf the net (within the limits that NASA
allows).

On 2008-02-09, Phillip Thorne <pethorne@comcast.net> wrote:
> When astronauts type in orbit, does microgravity mean they have to
> do extra work to return their fingers to the keys? Or does gravity
> play only a minor role in touch-typing?

Pretty trivial.


> This could be partially tested on Earth by arranging a keyboard in a
> vertical or inverted position; the problem is that your arms would
> fatigue in that posture.

I have typed in some pretty odd positions with a laptop. E.g. laptop
screen flat on the floor, keyboard resting near-vertically against the
side of the bed, arms hanging down to type on the keyboard. (Biggest
problem being a lack of support for my head)


> If you didn't already know that the STS-121 mission was in July
> 2006, how could interpret that datestamp? Is it ordered as mm.dd.yy
> (American style), dd.mm.yy (European), or yy.mm.dd (computer)?

I can't remember ever seeing a computer datestamp in yy.mm.dd format.
Almost all of them have been either formatted to the current locale,
yyyy-mm-dd (with or without the dash separators), or the horrible (but
unambiguous) RFC 822 email format.


- Tim

:: When astronauts type in orbit, does microgravity mean they have to do
:: extra work to return their fingers to the keys? Or does gravity play
:: only a minor role in touch-typing?

: Pretty trivial.

I haven't typed in microgravity, but my experience in 1g seems to indicate
typing in 0g would be *easier*, because you wouldn't have to hold your
fingers up off the keyboard. Would seem to be easier to maintain home
position.

Of course, I sometimes have a cat sitting on my forearms, or trying
rest a chin on the top of my mousing hand, so my experience may be
biased...


Wayne Throop throopw@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw

On Feb 9, 3:23 pm, Phillip Thorne <petho...@comcast.net> wrote:
> When astronauts type in orbit, does microgravity mean they have to do
> extra work to return their fingers to the keys?  Or does gravity play
> only a minor role in touch-typing?

Typing strikes me as one of the few things that /wouldn't/ be harder
in microgravity. Certainly the astronauts are using keyboards a lot.

(One thing that's bitchin' hard, by the way? Turning a screw or,
worse yet, a nut.)

Typing may be an exception, but as a general rule you want to have
really strong wrists and hands. Apparently a lot of hand-related
activities use gravity for bracing. It goes unnoticed.. but absent
gravity, you have to do the bracing yourself. So, astronauts are
encouraged to do a lot of hand exercises.

ObSF: one SF work predicted this! Major author, but obscure minor
work.


Doug M.

On Feb 10, 4:09 am, bernardZ <Berna...@nospam.com> wrote:
> I have not heard of any major problems, astronauts today in orbit now
> blog, get and write email and surf the net (within the limits that NASA
> allows).

Is that just bandwidth or do they have 'content' restrictions ?

"Phillip Thorne" <pethorne@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:so1sq31mnq2gg7ff1b1eqm84j9bfohnvj1@4ax.com...
> When astronauts type in orbit, does microgravity mean they have to do
> extra work to return their fingers to the keys? Or does gravity play
> only a minor role in touch-typing?
>
> This could be partially tested on Earth by arranging a keyboard in a
> vertical or inverted position; the problem is that your arms would
> fatigue in that posture.
Possibly it shouldn't make a great deal of difference .
On a more serious note , how about doing CPR during an emergency in space?
Apparently , they have already thought of that and have a velcro-restraint
system for just that purpose . The catch is the patient could be dead in the
five minutes it takes to get them into the harness . Apparently there have
been a few experiments such as

http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/08.21/06-nasa.html

I'd suggest that it may be possible to do CPR in a weightless environment by
using a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu technique to wrap your legs around the patient
to provide an "anchor" for your cpr compressions .
Sheerluck

: "Sheerluck" <sheerluckholmes@dreamon.com.au>
: how about doing CPR during an emergency in space?
: Apparently , they have already thought of that and have a velcro-restraint
: system for just that purpose . The catch is the patient could be dead in the
: five minutes it takes to get them into the harness .

Huh. I would have thought a simple ball with two tethers would work
better. Just put the ball over the chest, get behind the victim and
pull on the tethers. Lacking that, just make sure there's at least
one passageway of appropriate diameter (or that can be shimmed
down to the appropriate diameter) to brace both parties.

Perhaps I'm merely misunderstanding the "pulmonary" part.
But that'd be forced air to the mouth, right? So we're just
talking about the "cardio" part, right?


Wayne Throop throopw@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw

"Sheerluck" <sheerluckholmes@dreamon.com.au> wrote in message
news:47b572e1$0$32673$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.a u...
>
> On a more serious note , how about doing CPR during an emergency in space?

G. Harry Stine (under the pen name Lee Correy) wrote a SF story named "Space
Doctor" which had to deal with issues like this. It was set in a near-term
future where there was an enormous construction platform in LEO for the
construction of SPS. There were several hundred construction workers, so it
was realized that they needed a full-up hospital and not just a sick bay, so
the central character of the story was charged with setting up the first 0-G
hospital.

I think there was one scene where they hustled a guy into a storage locker
so they could get the bracing needed to perform CPR on him.

Another solution to a pesky problem was placing rubber bands around IV bags,
which wouldn't drip without gravity.

http://www.amazon.com/Space-Doctor-Harry-Correy-Stine/dp/B000MPBHNM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203101486&sr=8-1

--


Regards,
Mike Combs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
By all that you hold dear on this good Earth
I bid you stand, Men of the West!
Aragorn

In article <47b572e1$0$32673$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>, Sheerluck
wrote:
> On a more serious note , how about doing CPR during an emergency in space?
>
Scuba diving training (at least in the UK, 20 years ago. No, 24 years
ago.) includes as a standard part, how to do CPR on your buddy once you've
got him/her/it to the surface. While it's not true zero-g, it's a good
enough approximation.
Try it. Get old "Recusitation Annie" into her bikini and throw her
into the pool at the deep end. Wayne's idea of a ball and straps is over-
complicated - you can do the chest compressions with nothing more than arms
(but it does take practice ; which is why we were *required* to practice
it). The other take-home lesson from the training is that it's a damned
sight easier to get a seal if you do mouth-to-nose rather than mouth-to-
mouth.
What the training didn't tell me, was that when someone under
resuscitation vomits, it generally comes out of their mouth, not their nose.
And of course, *you* don't have any option yourself but to spit it out and
carry on. At that point, M2N has some really obvious attractions.

--
Aidan Karley,
Aberdeen, Scotland
Written at Sun, 17 Feb 2008 00:56 GMT, but posted later.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

: Aidan Karley <name1_name2@email.provider.invalid>
: Wayne's idea of a ball and straps is over- complicated - you can do
: the chest compressions with nothing more than arms (but it does take
: practice ; which is why we were *required* to practice it).

OK. I was thinking it'd make it easier to use large muscles rather
than just the arms, but OK.


Wayne Throop throopw@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw

Yeah verily, on Fri, 15 Feb 2008 18:48:07 GMT, Wayne Throop did exercise
fingers and typed:

>: "Sheerluck" <sheerluckholmes@dreamon.com.au>
>: how about doing CPR during an emergency in space?
>: Apparently , they have already thought of that and have a velcro-restraint
>: system for just that purpose . The catch is the patient could be dead in the
>: five minutes it takes to get them into the harness .
>
>Huh. I would have thought a simple ball with two tethers would work
>better. Just put the ball over the chest, get behind the victim and
>pull on the tethers. Lacking that, just make sure there's at least
>one passageway of appropriate diameter (or that can be shimmed
>down to the appropriate diameter) to brace both parties.
>
>Perhaps I'm merely misunderstanding the "pulmonary" part.
>But that'd be forced air to the mouth, right? So we're just
>talking about the "cardio" part, right?

There's a much easier way.

There's serious research being carried out right now in overhauling the CPR
process, based on two realities: first, chest compression really isn't that
effective. In order to compress the chest enough to move blood, you're
almost guaranteed to damage the ribs. Second, people don't really to do
mouth to mouth due to communicable disease.

The second is the easiest problem to solve: over time, CPR has reduced the
amount of mouth-to-mouth required. Originally it was 1 breath for every 5
compression, then 10, then 15, now it's two breaths, 30 compressions, and
repeat. In most cases of CPR, oxygen isn't the problem, it's moving the
blood. There's been success in using compression-only as compression
itself causes air to move in and out of the lungs. The next overhaul of
the CPR standard is in 2010 (I think) and there's a move to do away with
the artificial respiration part entirely except in cases (like drowning,
choking or exposure to low-oxygen atmosphere) where the lack of oxygen is
itself the reason for the arrest. In most other cases like heart attacks,
stroke, accidents or whatever, only compression would be used.

On to the compression: there's also a movement to do away with the chest
compression in favour of abdominal compression. First, it's easier to
compress because you don't have to be as specific in your hand placement as
you do with the chest. Second, about 25% of the body's blood is in there
at any one time, which so you get more blood movement than compressing the
chest. Third, because it's soft tissue there's less chance of causing
damage than compressing the more rigid ribcage. Fourth, because it's
easier to compress and there's so much of a blood reservoir, you don't need
as much force, which again makes it easier (and further reduces the risk of
more injury). Fifth, the pressure naturally moves the diaphragm, which
causes more air movement than trying to squeeze the ribs.

Naturally it couldn't be used in all cases--abdominal injuries, a pregnant
woman, say--but then current CPR has issues as well when you have existing
broken ribs or severe facial injuries, so that's pretty much a wash.

If this goes through (and I think that it will, at some point), CPR in
zero-G would pretty much be using a slightly modified Heimlich maneuver.