Kosmonautica

Crater face

2010-05-28T13:59:00.001-07:00

so yeah, its been almost two years since I've posted anything. Here's something to make it up to you.

This almost made me cry.

Distractions

2008-08-18T11:57:00.000-07:00

I've been getting distracted with other projects lately, and I'm trying to keep my focus. Mostly just trying to figure out what I want to do next. As far as drawing goes, right now I'm not in the mood to draw this, I'd rather do the other project, and this is the time where my projects usually die. But I'm going to fight it! So I've been searching the internet, browsing the bookstores and perusing the library(haven't gotten the courage to go deep into that one yet) So I think I'm going to turn to movies, see how movies portray space travel with a strong connection to Earth and other intelligent life forms. I'm curious about old school sci-fi, since that usually has some interesting if not silly portrayals of space. Movies like 2001, Alien and Sunshine are great for their portrayal of everyday life in space. Star Trek is interesting for relations between humans and aliens(though I'm a little more curious about diplomatic relations and not so much fighting, though I guess that may be inevitable.) Lately I've been grounding myself in facts and research, which is really fun and interesting for me, but I'm also curious to see what other people have done with the same information, how they rationalize their version of space. How do they make space work? Are they grounded in a feasable reality or do they use the future as a time of endless possibility where the rules don't matter so much? I'll be taking notes(though I'm not sure how much of it will end up here) and compiling a list of movies of interest. As much as I have been avoiding it, I may have to watch 2001 again. I've only seen it once, right after getting my wisdom teeth pulled. It scared the hell out of me. Maybe it won't be so bad seven years later. Or maybe it will be just as scary as the first time I watched it. Truth be told, space is a terrifying thing for me. It'll be interesting to see how many movies I come across that aren't scary movies or action type movies. I'll give you a tally later.

But yeah. I'm rather distracted, trying to hold this thing together. It keeps changing on me.

Captain's Log

2008-08-15T18:29:00.000-07:00

I know I've been not posting in a bit, but the sudden heat wave has made me a little lethargic. Anyways, I did a quick sketch today, thought I'd post it.

Captain's Log

I always found it silly in Star Trek that the captain would always write his journal by dictating to a computer. what's to stop his crew members from listening in? I guess its assumed that the captain's room is equiped with soundproof walls, but still! Anyways, I am of the opinion that if you're going to record it anywyas, might as well write the damn thing yourself. But that's just me. maybe the captains of star trek are too busy pacing to put some ink on paper, or their fingers to the keyboard. Or perhaps the pacing helps them think(though I'd be more afraid of what I blurted out to a computer than anything I've ever written) I figure personal quarters in spaceflight these days are not exactly condusive to Jaurnal dictations, but who's to say in the future soundproofing will be normal practice for personal quarters. I'd like to look into this further, I know I'm not taking it too seriously at the moment, but it is a funny thing that I see in a lot of space shows(and maybe it simply functions as good narration) I overthink things sometimes.

Space Hygiene

2008-08-08T21:31:00.000-07:00

Its something I often wonder. How do you bathe in space? I mean, you're up there for at least a few days, adn you're bound to get stinky. I'm also pretty sure your fellow astro/cosmonauts also get very stinky(factoid: people sweat more in space than on earth). So how do they deal with being human and secreting all those smells while in space?(p.s. people in space are more sensitive to smell than on earth...) Bathing seems kind of impossible(although a space bath might be interesting. I mean, would a tub full of water need a container in zero gravity? could you just place a large bubble of water, step in for a while and have the bath surround you?) showering sounds like a huge mess that could get tricky with all the electrical equipment aroundl, not to mention that water acts real wierd in space. So what's a girll to do? So one consideration(and again, here we're going into the russia vs. US thing) russian hygienics have evolved around conserving as much water as possible, while the opposite is true for the Americans(this is in regards to earth hygiene, not so much space hygiene). Water is a scarce thing diring space travel, so it really does have to be rationed carefully, and so using it for showers adn all that seems a bit wasteful, though you gotta get clean somehow. So, scientists are trying to come up with some sort of hygienic "set" that will satisfy the habits any astro/cosmonaut. YOu can read more about it here, there's some interesting stuff. the only thing about this article that makes me twitch just a bit is the part about wome's hygiene: "A woman is a very delicate human being, and for this reason we will try to do everything possible so that she may feel herself a woman on board the station. We will provide women with hygienic lipstick, lip balms and face powder. They will also be allowed to take some of their personal cosmetics into space which will make them more attractive in mens eyes." Because when a woman is in space, I'm sure she's really concerned with wether or not the men on board think they're pretty. Actually before I read what was under the heading of "women in space" in regards to that article, I was thinking more along the lines of WTF happens when a woman is on her period? I mean, I find that more of a pressing issue than wether or not a woman can wear lipstick in space. Anyways, I digress.

I'm also a little curious about how people eliminate in space, though I suspect it has a lot to do with pooping into tubes. More on this later I guess.

First Batch of Images

2008-08-03T12:07:00.000-07:00

so I've been drawing and doodling and all that, trying to figure out some design for our dear space travelers of Kosmonautica. I'm only posting two images, even though I have a lot of sketches building up.
So first I give you Valentina
So basically with the design I wanted a jumpsuit or undersuit around which every other piece of clothing revolved around. It fits close to the skin but is of a material that doesn't hinder moevement or cut off circulation. I also wanted to avoid going with a jumpsuit as the only form of clothing, so I added a sweater! and boots! okay, so its not that uncommon, but its a start. I'll be tweaking hte design a lot as I get further along and closer to actually drawing the comic. Porbably later this week I'll get to designing some of the other characters(I have some rough sketches, but I'm not ready to show any of them yet) So here we are for now, first glimpse of our dear heroine!

And now for the ship:
the Kosmonautica
Again, not the final product, but a real good first step in the right direction. I realized when I started this project"oh shit, I suck at drawing and designing vehicles! wtf am I going to do?" well, hopefully not fail, that's what. I am trying to go for a mix between a stingray and an anglar fish, and i might end up getting rid of those two protruding fins on either side of the back end of the ship, or I might just try to draw them a little better. either way, I actually sort of like the design, adn will be tweaking it further until I get something that I'm pleased with. So while I am not so good with the machines, there's only one way to get better. I'll be posting more later on!

and sorry about having to link the images, I'm still realatively new to this blogging thing and haven't quite figured everything out yet(I posted this earlier with the images but it looked really funky)

Semantics and Other Silliness

2008-08-01T16:58:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed in my last post teh interchanging use of Astronaut and Cosmonaut, adn there is a reason for it. No, I'm not just being my normal arbitrarily random self. basically when you go into space with the Americans, you are given Astronaut status. When you go into space with the Russians, you get Cosmonaut status. So, when refering to space travelers one is supposed to refer to them accordingly. Now, I would assume that if you're an American you get called an Astronaut regardless, adn the same goes for hte Russians, only then they're Cosmonauts. This mainly applies to people who are not american or Russian who go into space, I guess. What if the same person flew with both the Americans and the Russian? Would that make them a Asmonaut? Or would they just claim the title of whoever they flew with first?

Semanitcs aside, I've noticed lately I've been drawing a lot of comparisons between the American adn Russian space programs, and its kind of hard not to, seeing as they've always been the two giants whith substantial space programs. Also there is such a history of competetiveness between the two that it colors everything they've accomplished. So I should say that I do not favor one over the other. Both have made huge accomplishments adn huge blunders and dealt with both in their own way. Mostly I just like to point out that even now that the cold war is over, we still see vestiges of that old relationship between the two countires in the titles of their astro/cosmonauts.

The Regretable Cricumsatnce of Mercury 13

2008-07-31T21:30:00.000-07:00

while scaning the NASA website, I came to the realization that it took quite a very long time for NASA to get their ass in gear and send a woman in space. The Russians got the first man in space, and the US followed suit in 1961. in 1963 the russians again beat the US(but only because they caught wind that the Americans were thinking of sending women into space, so in order to beat them they sent Valentina Tereshkova into space) but instead of quickly following suit, NASA pulled a huge fail. In 1959 The Mercury 13 were established. Basically William Lovelace, the guy who developed the astronaut testing, wanted to know how women would. So he put the women to the test, adn thirteen of them passed. testing abruptly stopped when the use of a naval facility was denied because NASA hadn't given the okay(and never would for this project until 1978). One of the candidates(actually the first of the group to pass the tests) took it to the higher-ups, but with little success in 1962. unfortunately, george Low, John Glenn and Scott Carpenter all testified that women could not be astronauts, because they needed to be airforce test pilots(and women could not at this time because women were still baned from attending the air force academy. HOwever a few of them were in fact cevillian test pilots) and that they had to have an engineering degree(despite teh fact that John Glenn did not have said Engineering degree while several of the Mercury thirteen did.) So while the testing of the Mercury 13 never promised to send a woman into space, the cancelation of the project certainly hindered the progress. in 1983, Sally Ride would become the first American woman in space(that's right folks, 21 years after Alan Shepard, 20 years after Valentina Tereshkova made her three day trip into orbit) WTF, NASA, why so slow on the uptake?

Now, I'm not saying NASA, bad, soivet union, good job! No, the soviet union doesn't get off so easily either, because while they did get the first woman into space, after they did it they kept training women as cosmonauts but didn't put any of them in space. It should also be mentioned that the Vostok 6(the ship that carried valentina into space) required no piloting from the cosmonaut. basically the kosmonaut just needed parachuting skillz and a pure communist heart. So valentian, 10 years younger than any of the Mercury seven men, logged more space time than any of the american astronauts combined had logged to that date. However, after Valentina, it would be 19 years until the next soviet woman was sent into space(Svetlana Savitskaya, first Soviet woman in space for non-propoganda reasons) Even though there were training programs in place training female Cosmonauts, none were chosen because the few slots for cosmonauts were reserved first for men(and since they had already beaten the americans to the first woman in space, why fill one of those precious spots on a space flight with a woman when a man was willing and waiting?) the soviets get more points than NASA in this subject only because they actually did put a woman in space first, and also beacuse they didn't completely shut down their training program for women cosmonauts. other than that they're no better than NASA. Both fail horribly when it comes to women in space. baiscally it took them 20 years to get over their galactic pissing contest before they decided hey, why not send women(who were WAY qualified) into space to do something useful? In the 50 years since NASA, 61 female astonauts and cosmonauts have made it to space. Only 2 of those women flew before 1983.

Happy Birthday NASA!

2008-07-29T11:19:00.000-07:00

That's right, kids. Today, NASA turns 50. Hurrah for NASA! They've even got themselves a 50th Anniversary Website with all sorts of shiney buisness.

Space Music...

2008-07-28T21:59:00.000-07:00

okay, so it's not really music from space...shoot, some of the songs don't even have a spacey feel. I know I promised pictures with this post, but I've been slow and reluctant to set up the Scannersaurus Rex, so for now I offer you a soundtrack of sorts. I've always wanted to mix comics and a soundtrack, but haven't quite figured out a good way of doing that. And this mix isn't a particularly good mix, but its a start. I'll probably post another in the future. actually I most certainly will post one in the future, because I find this mixwit buisness so damn entertaining. its like I have my own radio show again, except without all the fancy button pushing and talking to thousands of people who nev er talk back and subjecting them to two hours of balkan music a week.

Also I apologize for the lack of science in this post. I found a book at Powell's the other day that was like "the answer book for everything related to space!" which sort of took all the fun out of doing research. What's the point if someone has done all the work for you? Lucky for you, I didn't buy the book(because I'm cheap and I like the free of the interwebz) and I'll soon resume the search for interesting facts on space travel.

I've also been experimenting with quail hybrids, because I find it amusing that there are so many experiments on quail in space. My most recent creation is the "tentaquail" which is basically a giant sea quail with tentacles. And with that, I leave you to your thoughts.

making babies in Space

2008-07-21T16:22:00.000-07:00

I wasn't really looking for anything in particular today(I swear!) but came across an article about sex experiments in space. In short, there have been no experiments with humans, but lots on rats more for the purpose of seeing if procreation is possible, not so much to see if pleasure is possible. In animals, this seems like a logical thing to do, since if humans plan long term space flight it might be necessary to have a renewable food source(i.e. creatures) Experiments have not been done on humans since the effects of zero gravity and spaceflight on developing emryoes are unclear. As far as wether or not humans are physically capable of having sex in space? "Dr. Serova does not believe that space flyers will need any special technical training to have sex in space. "You know, sometimes when I see magazines for adults I am getting really astonished by human sexual creativity in terms of positions and ways of making sex. Weightlessness certainly wont be any kind of obstacle for modern people."" (read the rest of the article here) I guess it all goes back to the quails in space. The future of procreation lies in the gentle claws of the quail...

As far as the comic is concerned, I've been working on some little sketches today. I'll try to post some of them next time. To be honest, despite my research, a lot of this research is going to go unused. oh well, at least now I know.

Bone Loss and prolonged space travel

2008-07-19T17:17:00.000-07:00

Bone loss in space is serious buisness. I'm not sure why I am so drawn to it, the idea that weightlessness causes your bones to deteriorate. At first I thought maybe it was sort of like muscles, where if you don't use them they shrink. but if bones were like muscles, would it be possible to rebuild them? In going about this comic thing, I want to avoid solving real problems with something like "oh we don't need to worry about bone loss in space, we have a magic machine/pill/gravity that takes care of that for us!" no no. Well, even if I do something like that, I want to at least havee some basis in fact. But I digress.

Like I was saying, bone loss in space is a lot more complicated than I previously thought. For some reason, in space the cells that bulid bones don't work as much, while the cells that destroy bones still function, resulting in bone loss. In addition, Radiation may cause bone loss(check out this one) The cool thing is that if scientists can figure out how to promote bone growth or reverse the effects, such technology could be used to help people with osteoperosis or other bone problems. Perhaps perhaps. Once the bone is lost, it is difficult to regain it.

See more:
Why Astronauts Suffer Bone Loss
Space Bones
Lost in Space: Bone Mass

So while there are about a million things that make space travel difficult, bone loss is probably one of the less glamorous. Still, it is a serious problem that can make life back on gravity unpleasant. At least no astronauts have come back with space parasites just yet, at least not to my knowledge(though I might have to explore this in better detail. perhaps next time?) No bueno.

Quails in Space!

2008-07-18T11:53:00.000-07:00

When I first started looking at stuff about space, one of the first things I read about was all the kinds of animals that we've sent into space. Lots of dogs, monkies, rodents and insects. And surprisingly, lots of quail. Lots and lots of quail. and, until recently, quail as passengers and not as food. Though I don't typically think of qual as food, having grown up in california where our state bird is perhaps one of the silliest creatures on Earth. No, I think of quail as those little birds with the floofs on top of their heads that run in front of your car with all of their offspring following suit.

But really, quail eggs are quite frequently sent into space. Now I can take a gander why they'd send bird eggs to space, but I couldn't quite figure out why quail, of all birds, were chosen. I still don't really know, but I've learned some interesting things. Basically, they send quail eggs in space at varrying stages of their development to test the effects of microgravity on development. I was actually having a difficult time finding stuff on the interwebz about the nature of thee experiemtns, if quail had actually been hatched, or if they were simply incubated adn then hatched on earth. I got a lot of stuff about food. But then I came across this one which sheds a bit of light onto what exactly they were doing with quail in space and why. Gives a lot of good reasons for raising birds, and finally answered my question about why they use quails and not other birds. The reason, basically, is that quails develop faster. makes sense. A lot of the reasoning behind choosing quail for this type of experiment has to do with saveing resources in space, one huge resource being, um... well space. and I guess with birds you don't have to have a pregnant mother, so you don't have to deal with feeding or cleaning up the poop of the pregnant mother when all they really wanted to know was how the babies were developing.

So while the reason for quails in space isn't as bizzare as I had imagined, its still a fascinating little bit of space exploration, and something I fully intend to use. I'll probably look into it further, but for now this is good enough for me.

Let the fun begin!

2008-07-17T19:10:00.001-07:00

Gonna keep it short. I'm starting to write a comic about space travel and such. Originally the idea was to just do something light hearted and fast. Of course, I can never simply just DO anything. I get obsessed. one might say I go a bit overboard. I do, I'm not even going to try and deny it. In starting this project I got way into researching space travel and the like, and I'm only a week into it but I'm obsessed. I have failed at blogging before but mostly because I had nothing interesting to say other than the mundane details of my life. So now, I'm going to post whatever little tidbits of information I find, and probably do a fair amount of rambling on the wierd shit we do in space, because some of it doesn't make sense. And maybe I'll write a little bit about the comic itself. And hopefully this project won't become like all my other attempts at graphic novels, which die as soon as I get bored with the research. Luckily, I'll be tapping into some old interests(such as astronemy and quantum physics. Hey, I may be an artist but I like science too! and Linguistics...) Anyways, more fun in the future!