Thread: will astronauts in the future be shot to space sunk in breathable fluid?

seems theres research to achieve breathable fluids of perfect neutral buoyancy

if a pilot was sink in this fluid he could be shot to space in a cannon or experiment 180º turns flying

so would be posible jules verne to be right and this be the future?

I have lived my entire life sunk in a breathable fluid. It's called air.

^^^^ A+^^^^

i meant liquid

I would normally label luxtpm's posts as "wordsalad" at best, but in this particular instance he has brought up an interesting and very valid idea. There is indeed research into liquid breathing going on, and it could indeed have implications for future space travel :

Liquid breathing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

One should be careful to note though that there are many unresolved problems with this, and no working prototypes usable by humans currently exist. I agree however that it is an interesting idea ( but I wouldn't want to be the one trying it out !! ).

It is used by the former Martians in Mission_to_Mars

"YOU step into your diving suit and pull a helmet over your head. The helmet immediately starts to fill with liquid, but you don't panic, you simply begin breathing in the fluid as you would air. No, this is not a scene from the movie The Abyss (pictured), but the brainchild of inventor Arnold Lande, a retired heart and lung surgeon formerly based at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston.

While some researchers work on ways to keep divers under for longer (see "How to spin seawater into air"), Lande has designed a liquid breathing system that he claims will allow people to dive to great depths without the risk of decompression sickness, otherwise known as the bends. It is caused when inert gases like nitrogen and helium in the air mixture divers breathe dissolve into their blood, particularly under the terrific pressures of the deep ocean. If a diver resurfaces too quickly, these gases can bubble into body tissues like the bubbles that form as a soda bottle is uncapped, causing terrible joint pain, seizures and paralysis.

Breathing an oxygen-carrying liquid would dispense with the need for inert gases like nitrogen, says Lande, and so eliminate the threat of the bends."



from: Sign in to read: Divers could breathe deep with liquid-filled lungs - tech - 10 November 2010 - New Scientist

Originally Posted by drowsy turtle

"YOU step into your diving suit and pull a helmet over your head. The helmet immediately starts to fill with liquid, but you don't panic, you simply begin breathing in the fluid as you would air. No, this is not a scene from the movie The Abyss (pictured), but the brainchild of inventor Arnold Lande, a retired heart and lung surgeon formerly based at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston.

While some researchers work on ways to keep divers under for longer (see "How to spin seawater into air"), Lande has designed a liquid breathing system that he claims will allow people to dive to great depths without the risk of decompression sickness, otherwise known as the bends. It is caused when inert gases like nitrogen and helium in the air mixture divers breathe dissolve into their blood, particularly under the terrific pressures of the deep ocean. If a diver resurfaces too quickly, these gases can bubble into body tissues like the bubbles that form as a soda bottle is uncapped, causing terrible joint pain, seizures and paralysis.

Breathing an oxygen-carrying liquid would dispense with the need for inert gases like nitrogen, says Lande, and so eliminate the threat of the bends."



from: Sign in to read: Divers could breathe deep with liquid-filled lungs - tech - 10 November 2010 - New Scientist

This was also nicely depicted in the movie "The Abyss".

It was. However, I'm sorry to ruin it for you, but that wasn't real.

Originally Posted by drowsy turtle

It was. However, I'm sorry to ruin it for you, but that wasn't real.

I didn't say that it was. What I meant is that it is a good depiction of the principle. I had already mentioned in post 5 that there are no working prototypes of such a breathing apparatus; the general principle however is based on sound science.

I wonder if, psychologically, people could ever get used to the initial immersion...

Originally Posted by Strange

I wonder if, psychologically, people could ever get used to the initial immersion...

I said it below - I wouldn't want to be the one trying it !! I think it would be a very traumatic experience, much like drowning, at first.
Actually, I read somewhere ( can't find the source right now ) that the muscles used for breathing would not be strong enough to move the required amount of fluid...in effect the subject would have to be given drugs to stop his natural breathing first, then tubes get inserted into the airways, and mechanical pumps move the liquid in and out. It is passive breathing.
Like I said, I don't know where the future of this technology lies, but I sure as hell won't be in it !!

To answer the original question as to whether or such a breathable liquid would make it possible to shoot astronauts into space as in "From the Earth to the Moon", the answer is no. While imersion in such a liquid would alleviate the G forces felt by the body, this ability is by no means unlimited. Two factors come immediately to mind. The first is that the Human body is not made of tissue of uniform density, thus it is not possible to to have perfect neutral buoyancy throughout the whole body. Even in a liquid that gives net neutral buoyancy, there will be strain and damage to internal tissue at high enough accelerations. The second is pressure differential. Pressure changes with depth of a liquid, and at high acceleration, even a shallow depth of liquid can have high pressure differential between surface and depth.

What type of acceleration are we talking about with a Jules Verne type Space Gun? His gun was 900' long or somewhat under 300 meters. This is unrealistically short. So let's lengthen this a bit to 5.5 km. We need to get to 11 km/sec to reach escape velocity. To get from 0 to 11 km/sec in 5.5 km requires an acceleration of 11,000 m/sec^2 and it will take 1 sec to traverse the length of the gun. This Works out to something like 1,112g.

Even floating in a neutral buoyancy fluid is not going to protect you from that many g. For instance: at a depth of 33 ft water exerts one atmosphere of pressure at 1g, this works out to 0.03 Atm/ft. At 1,112g, it woud be 33.7 atm per ft. Even lying flat on your back, you would have over a 30 Atm pressure differential across your body

the presure diferential couldnt be solved elongated a tube up say one km?

so the initial presure would be 1000*9.8*1 and almost no presure gradient

Have you considered the logistics of launching a 1 km long tube? Ot the thermal effects of launching at much more than 11.2 km/s since you have to overcome the losses in velocity (and heating BTW) of launching through the atmosphere at sea level?