Starship Asterisk*

neufer wrote:The 500 club welcomes:

1) MargaritaMc at 5.45 posts per day

Beyond wrote:Margarita, you'll be happy(?) to know, that according to the official rules laid out by RJN... once an Asterisk*ian reaches 500 posts, said Asterisk*ian is judged to be officially insane.
Welcome to the club

orin stepanek wrote:
A Happy 500 day club member to Boomer & MargaritaMc

orin stepanek wrote:
A Happy 500 day club member to Boomer & MargaritaMc

Thank you, orin

neufer wrote:This is really more like DAY care than a DAY club.

geckzilla wrote:It's not post count that makes a title. It's character. Sometimes it's difficult to come up with a title when people zoom up in the post counts so quick but we don't really know them.

geckzilla wrote:
It's not post count that makes a title. It's character.

Sometimes it's difficult to come up with a title when people zoom up in the post counts so quick but we don't really know them.

MargaritaMc wrote:

geckzilla wrote:It's not post count that makes a title. It's character. Sometimes it's difficult to come up with a title when people zoom up in the post counts so quick but we don't really know them.

So titles are conferred?
I'd think I'd need to be here at least a year before I'd want to change my current designation. I really like being 'commander'!
Beyond suggested something like 'black hole' - but, you don't know if, just like a black hole, I might disappear from sight...

Margarita

beyond wrote: I didn't suggest anything about a black hole for a title. Go back and read it again.

Noun 1. wheeler dealer - a shrewd or unscrupulous person who knows how to circumvent difficulties

Beyond wrote:I wasn't thinking of the "unscrupulous" part. Just that you're into so many things, that you have to have a fast set of wheels to deal with all the ground you cover.

Actually, IF you wanted a different Title than Commander, you can pick one out yourself.

neufer wrote:

geckzilla wrote:
It's not post count that makes a title. It's character.

Sometimes it's difficult to come up with a title when people zoom up in the post counts so quick but we don't really know them.

I'm thinking that we somehow know MargaritaMc at 5.45 posts per day
more than we know Boomer12k at 0.23 posts per day .

Beyond wrote:

geckzilla wrote:
If you really want, I could remove all post counts and statistical information from the forum.

-Evil Admin, Killer of Fun, Slayer of Laughter

Beware the power of the mighty gecko

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/04/19/russia-launches-animals-into-space-on-one-month-journey/ wrote:
Russia launches [15 geckos] into space on one-month journey
By Miriam Kramer, April 19, 2013

<<An intrepid critter crew of geckos, mice and gerbils and other animals launched into orbit Friday (April 19) to begin a month-long Russian experiment to study how space travel affects living creatures. The space mission, scientists assure, will return the animals to Earth alive.

The new animal astronauts launched into orbit at 6 a.m. EDT (1000 GMT) atop a Russian-built Soyuz 2 rocket that lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, in Central Asia. The rocket carried the Bion-M1 space capsule, which is filled with enclosures for 45 mice, eight Mongolian gerbils, 15 geckos and numerous other species. They are expected to spend a month in orbit, flying 357 miles above Earth while scientists on the ground monitor the health of the capsule's passengers. [See photos of the Bion-M1 space animals mission]

"There has been a long history of this kind of biological research over the past 40 years, and NASA and the Russian side have been collaborating for that entire time, which is pretty remarkable. But each mission kind of brings a unique focus, be it the actual duration of the mission or the specimens being flown," Nicole Rayl, project manager for NASA's portion of the mission, told SPACE.com. While the project is run by Russia's Federal Space Agency, also called Roscosmos, an international team of scientists is overseeing the mission's many experiments.

Bion-M1 is Russia's first mission dedicated to launching animals into space in 17 years. The last Bion mission carried rhesus monkeys, geckos and amphibians into orbit for 15 days in 1996. And while there have been other animal-centric launches since that time, the Bion-M1 mission is the longest flight of its kind in the Russian science program's 40-year history. For this reason, Bion-M1 is designed to help scientists understand how long-duration human spaceflight might affect astronauts, Rayl said. "The unique nature of this mission is that it's a 30-day mission, so it's longer than a lot of the other animal and biological missions we've flown," Rayl said. "The big importance for us is that we get to compare data from this longer mission with better analytical tools that we have today, [compared] to the missions we've flown in the past that were similar but not exactly the same."

Scientists will monitor a wide variety of health metrics for the animals while the creatures are on board. The spacecraft will beam down information about the health of the animals and the conditions inside the capsule. Researchers are interested in understanding the many different ways spaceflight might change a mouse, for example, because the data could help scientists understand what humans need to be wary of on long-term trips. One of the NASA experiments focuses on how microgravity and radiation affect sperm motility in mice. If humans are going to visit other planets on long flights, Rayl said, it's important to understand if people will be able to procreate from sex in space. Some missions could take decades, so space-based reproduction could be a necessity. Although one of the NASA scientists will examine the mice for sperm motility, there is no chance that the animals will reproduce while in the spacecraft. Only male mice were selected for this journey, Rayl said.

Other experiments take the wide view, looking into how different body systems are connected and changed during spaceflight. "We often have very targeted scientific experiments where we have one investigator looking at, say, 'cardiovascular system function.' This [Bion-M1] is different because we have nine investigators [in] total looking at a whole organism approach to spaceflight," Rayl said. "That's a very exciting development for us, that we're able to bring so many investigators to the table to really maximize the scientific return from this mission."

After a month in orbit, the Bion-M1 spacecraft will fall to Earth and scientists will collect the animals and run tests.

While the mice, gerbils, geckos and other creatures should survive their plunge through the Earth's atmosphere, scientists will need to humanely euthanize the animals in order to get the data they need, Rayl added.>>

geckzilla wrote:
Clearly, geckos are the future of space exploration.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/weird-wide-web/russia-readies-geckos-space-voyage-report wrote:
Russia readies geckos for space voyage: report

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

"Some astronauts experienced a flattening of the eyeball"

<<Russian authorities plan to put geckos in space, claims a report from the Russian news agency Interfax, the latest twist in a wild and whacky week for the famously space-conscious superpower. The reptiles, unique to the lizard world due to their chirping abilities, are to "undergo a tough selection process before departing with the Bion-M satellite, which is set to be launched toward the end of 2012," Russia's Institute of Biomedical Problems spokesperson said, according to The Moscow Times.

"[T]here will also be no place for those which are easily excited or aggressive," the spokesman added, perhaps a bit severely.

But Britain's The Sun was quick to put the move in context, noting that fruit flies went into orbit in 1947. But the "most famous creature cosmonauts were Rhesus monkey Albert II, who went up in 1949," The Sun said, "and Laika the dog who tragically died after being sent up by Russia in 1957."

Satellites are to carry a total of fifteen lizards into space, where they will be observed alongside a corresponding group on Earth, the Moscow Times said. Why were geckos singled out? Is it their impressive ability to scale walls or, in some cases, walk on water? "Geckos don't need much special training because of their particular way of life," the Biomedical institute spokesman explained, saying that "under effects of unusual gravity changes, you see that they don't care where they run, on the floor, wall or ceiling."

Seems laughable, but scientists this week announced that human astronauts sent into space for long periods of time came back with weird eyeball issues due to unforeseen extraterrestrial affects on the brain, according to the report published Tuesday in the journal Radiology. The New Scientist reported that scientists found some astronauts experienced a flattening of the eyeball while others may even develop blindness, results it said "could jeopardise long-haul missions into space." Turns out the Russian reptile experiment may, in fact, be something we should all keep an eye on.

An intrepid critter crew of geckos, mice and gerbils and other animals launched into orbit Friday (April 19) to begin a month-long Russian experiment to study how space travel affects living creatures. The space mission, scientists assure, will return the animals to Earth alive.>>