Planning For Alternate Ways To Get to ISS

what?

Biology and Physics with be researched for discovery on ISS?

but why oh why we need to land on the moon...and collect rocks!

My family members are authors of the following paper

http://rsx.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/16/10/947

The news may be bad, mammalian reproductive tissues do not fair well in simulated microgravity.the mouse was the model used in this NASA funded research,but we need to know for certain, repeat my brother and sister in laws lab results on orbit with rodents.to do this experiment on orbit will require the habituate for rodents described in this solicitation.

I have a return email from a member of the biology decadel survey who tells me that this subject will end up in this Junes final report as a priority request.

Sounds like they are now taking me seriously when I repeatedly told them they need to put rodents, a few hours a day, in one of three onboard operating centrifuges on the ISS.

Or maybe not. They could be planning to inject them with experimental pharmaceutical drugs that could (hopefully) stop bone loss without serious side-effects. I have yet to find an astronaut willing to be a drug tester in space.

Hmm? I wonder which method gets them the most return?

OK. I give up. Maybe they should do both. Half of the rodents take drugs and the other half gets to ride a roller coaster for a couple of hours a day. Who really cares if rats get sick or not? The answer is: the astronauts do because they don't want to spin themselves in the ISS until the method is proven not to make them sick.

If drugs work, NASA should get lots of money from the drug companies. Yea! I am all for getting NASA more money.

If intermittent partial gravity works on rodents, NASA could conceivably realize they don't need expensive 39-days-to-Mars rocket engines or tethered spinning space vehicles. They may turn out to be black holes through which NASA pours money.

Instead, the get the Jupiter transfer vehicle from 2001: A Space Odyssey which was non-rotating on the outside but contained a small intermittently rotating human centrifuge on the inside AND most importantly, they get near instant buy-in from guys like Obama, Bolden, Nelson, and everyone's hero, Buzz Aldrin because a conventional vehicle that takes 30 months to and from Mars costs orders of magnitude less than a non-conventional or experimental vehicle. The crew returns with a little less hair due to gamma radiation exposure but no bone loss.

May the best method win.

Doing one countermeasure method and completely ignoring the other, however, shows someone could be stacking the deck.

With respect spin simulated 'microgravity' is not the same as real micro-gravity. Coriolis forces involved must be considered. In the long term the problem will only really be resolved by mouse studies in situ. Taking rats into space is a rodent too far. However I would suggest Guinea Pigs! At least they are edible and can help to close the ECLSS loop!
EOL
@Joe:
1/ Don't forget you need a Control Group!
2/ Mouse biology is a 'good enough' analog for human biology. Rats don't bring anything to the table. Guinea Pigs on the other hand...
3/ NASA won't get any money. NASA is not allowed to get any money! Except through Congress.
4/ Radiation problem, a quick '39' day flight reduces exposure to GCRs. And boredom!
5/ 2001 spin habitat was too small. Coriolis Forces. (Again.)
"To reduce Coriolis forces to livable levels, a rate of spin of 2 rpm or less would be needed. To produce 1g, the radius of rotation would have to be 224 m (735 ft) or greater..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gravity
6/ Radiation is a killer... eventually but even a non lethal dose can incapacitate a crew; say when they are attempting a landing.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2005/27jan_solarflares/
EOL
Actually with regards to bone loss I have high hopes for COLBERT. The shock from resistive running causing stress on the bone and thus regeneration rather than degradation. But time and human guinea pigs will tell!
EOF